Project


Local governments need information that summarize, organize and interconnect different areas of social, environmental, economic and territorial development. Climate change mitigation and adaptation, the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, the preservation of ecosystems, the pressures of unemployment and social inequalities, among multiple other sustainable development challenges, demand local decision-makers timely information to anticipate, plan and implement sustainability strategies. Sustainability Indicators (SI), as a set of indicators that evaluate the different areas of development, have a key role in this search for information in strong uncertain contexts. The process of choice, definition, implementation and discussion of these indicators is critical to their effectiveness. If key stakeholders, relevant interest groups and the community participate or are involved in this process at a local level, this can generate more opportunities for a comprehensive debate about the different visions of sustainable development for the context of and enhance the usability of the indicators for decision makers at different levels (political, technical and managerial, individual, etc.). Thus, Sustainability Indicators facilitate the knowledge of heterogeneous and dynamic realities, strengthen the ability to establish goals and set more realistic targets, that match the ambition of citizens and other stakeholders, from which one can follow their progress and level of achievement. Sustainability Indicators can also be an excellent tool to communicate, to promote and to educate, not only to the population but also the political, technical and economic actors, towards the necessity to change lifestyles, behaviors, policy options, commercial and industrial practices to achieve a course of development that is sustainable.

Therefore, this project aims to implement a participatory methodology in building a Sustainability Indicators Set for Estarreja territory - the "MAIS Estarreja" -, building on existing data at the local level and supplementing it with new data and indicators, as a result of the involvement of different local actors.

The recent effort in the city of Estarreja to change the image of "Estarreja - Industry Chemical City" to "Estarreja - Ecocity" has resulted in a number of initiatives that have contributed to this purpose. As examples we have the BioRia Project, the Environmental Interpretation Centre, the process of urban regeneration of the City of Estarreja, which vision of "Estarreja, an example of sustainability" materialized in initiatives such as the development of Guides to Good Sustainability Practices for citizens, for schools, for trade and services, for entrepreneurs and culminate in the creation of the EcoEstarreja Observatory. Through other municipal initiatives such as the Social Network and its monitoring, the Education Charter and its monitoring, or the Diretor Municipal Plan Review and its strategic environmental assessment have been collected and treated some sectoral indicators on Estarreja. The activity is not always systematic and it is limited on time and dispersed sometimes, and thus the various sets of indicators show little interconnection with each other and they don’t regulate dissemination or an integrated communication strategy.

The construction of this Indicators Matrix will be essential to: i) encourage the harmonious development of the different dimensions of sustainability, without risk of neglecting perspectives of analysis that are deemed important by key actors; ii) ensure that the actors see themselves in the assessment of development that is made; iii) anticipate trends and avoid negative synergies of measures to promote a change in image and simultaneously the development of the county; and iv) contribute to the enrichment of local decision-making.

Project Timeline: The project runs from 1 September 2014 to June 2016

Funding Entity: Observatory Homme-Milieux International (OHMI) – Estarreja, behind the French Investigation Center CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique).