COP27, translocal networking and community-led local development

Youth voices on climate, sustainability and communities in Europe. September 19, 17h-18:30h CEST

Stand with Elizabeth, Demand Climate Justice

People who have contributed least to the climate crisis are right now suffering its worst impacts. This is a grave injustice. Elizabeth, a Kenyan climate activist, is calling on leaders to act now – and get frontline communities the help they need by providing the necessary finance to cope with the worst impacts of climate change.

Sign Elizabeth's letter

Communities for Future at COP27

Next week COP27, the UN Climate Summit, kicks off in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt. Members of the CfF network and the SPARK consortium will be there, strengthening connections, advocating for community-level responses to the climate crisis, and demanding bold climate action.

Are you going to Sharm El Sheikh and want to connect with the CfF team? Get in touch with Laura (laura.kaestele@ecolise.eu) and keep an eye on CfF's social media for more details of our participation at COP.

Networking for Just Sustainability Transition

What is the role of translocal networking for just sustainability transitions? And which networks engage in making our world more just and sustainable? In this 2-hour online event, you can join other makers and thinkers to tackle the economic, ecological and social challenges of our times. Speakers from different perspectives will share their experiences with networking for sustainability transitions before we dive collectively into co-producing knowledge on a range of different translocal networks for the Wiki knowledge commons.

The event is part of the event series on Just Sustainability Transitions. Duncan Crowley will speak about experiences and current work from ECOLISE, ‘European Day of Sustainable Communities' and the ongoing project UrbanCommunity, which ECOLISE helped lead from 2019-2021, which is building a Community of Practice and wiki about #SustainableJustCities.

Register for the event

Presenting the 10 Theses on Transformative Community-Led Local Development

As part of the policy positioning process, ECOLISE’s policy team has been hosting conversations with partners and members on community-led initiatives and the European Green Deal. The consultation period ended on 31 October and the outcomes will be communicated during two key events in November:

Validation of the 10 theses on transformative community-led local development policies

Policy Members Hour

ECOLISE members are warmly invited to a session on 8 November, 16:00-18:00 CET to learn about and discuss the current version of ECOLISE’s 10 theses on transformative community-led local development.

We will also discuss good practice examples to illustrate the 10 theses, in order to present them to policy stakeholders on 28 November - and we are looking for more examples from ECOLISE members, which is why we need your help:

These examples would ideally reflect the themes of one of the theses.

They can either be existing projects and practices by community-led initiatives and/or transformational local development policies which support community-led initiatives and are already in place.

Please share good practices you know about by directly commenting on the Google Doc and by explaining in one sentence the example, including a link.

Register for the event

Community-led initiatives and the EU Green Deal: towards transformational local development policies

Main Policy Stakeholder Event

One of the focus points of this year in ECOLISE’s policy positioning process of community-led initiatives and the European Green Deal will be our main policy stakeholder online event, which will take place on 28 November 2022, 14:30-17:30 CET, co-hosted by the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), who will bring a delegation of their members to the event.

This will be the first presentation of the 10 theses on transformational community-led local development policies to policy stakeholders at EU and local levels, under the motto: Community-led initiatives and the European Green Deal: towards transformational local development policies.

Our aim is to inspire conversations about the role of communities and EU policies on the path to transformational systemic change. We are looking for ECOLISE members who are interested and committed to join this conversation and host one of the break-out rooms as facilitators and / or rapporteurs. Your name would be announced as part of our ECOLISE member delegation.

Please get in touch with the policy team (nina.klein@ecolise.eu, amelie.krug@ecolise.eu) if we can count on you to be present - and share the invitation with your network.

Register for the event

A soil deal for Europe to kickstart initiatives and working groups

Horizon Europe Soil Deal networking with Pekka Ilmari Nikander

We have been on the lookout for an EU funding proposal, to be submitted to the Horizon Europe Soil Deal, especially thanks to the guidance of Pekka Ilmari Nikander who has been in the process of weaving a network of interested people and interesting places for this purpose.

According to the latest unofficial information, the details of the next relevant funding call will be published in December, the call will open in January, and close in March. This means that we need to start getting to know each other now and in early December start to organise ourselves. You are welcome to express your interest and contact Pekka at pekka.nikander@iki.fi

Volunteers in Eco Communities

In February 2020, a group of four well established eco communities from Ireland, Sweden, Denmark and Germany embarked upon a small-scale, intensive partnership project called Volunteering Solidarity and Sustainability (within eco communities). The resulting best practices gathered and collated from this 2-year project are now available for you to view on a new website

Visit Volunteers in Eco Communities

Community-Building and Community-Led Local Development: ECOLISE at Interreg

ECOLISE was invited to speak at the annual Interreg conference on 27 October, on the topic of “Community involvement in Interreg”. The session focused on how to integrate community-led local development (LEADER/ CLLD) into the EU’s Interreg funding programme, which focusses on strengthening cross-border territorial cooperation. ECOLISE stressed the need for integrating community-building as an explicit funding goal into CLLD, and adapting the metrics of success accordingly.

The interest by the European Commission into the role of communities is welcomed by ECOLISE, especially with our current policy positioning process aiming at transformational local/ bioregional development policies.

See the slides

Address and Contacts