ENGAGE Campaign in Ivanić-Grad

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Summary

Credits: Ivanic-Grad City

Ivanić-Grad, a 15.000 people town in Croatia is committed to decarbonise its community as part of its participation to the Covenant of Mayors. Since 2010, the municipality has initiated the ENGAGE campaign aiming at actively engaging citizens in energy-saving actions and raising awareness on sustainable energy.

"In the City of Ivanić-Grad the success of the ENGAGE Campaign is based on an excellent cooperation with stakeholders, associations and citizens. As a modern PR campaign, ENGAGE is implemented in every local event in the City” - Vlatka Berlan Vlahek, Head of Department of City Development, Ivanić-Grad

Goals

  • Contribute to mobilize citizens and other stakeholders to build a sustainable energy future;
  • Raise awareness amongst citizens and other local stakeholders about energy savings;
  • Promote the collaboration between citizens, local authorities, companies and other stakeholders.

How it works

  • Since 2010, through the ENGAGE campaign, the municipality has been engaging around 300 citizens with different backgrounds and ages for developing multiple energy-saving activities.
  • One of the first steps of the ENGAGE campaign was to engage citizens through a poster campaign that tells tangible local stories.
  • Citizens make their own personal energy reduction pledge on a poster. The poster shows how they are going to use less energy in their everyday activities.
  • The posters of all citizens are exposed in public spaces of the city during important events.
  • 79 out of the 300 citizens participating in the campaign accepted to have their energy consumption monitored. They agreed on sharing data regarding their energy consumption at home and their mobility habits. All the data from all 79 people were then analysed and inserted in a document. A year later, the data was analysed again to assess the changes in the energy consumption. The results
  • showed an average of 17% reduction in
  • individual CO2 emissions.
  • Examples of behavioural change triggered by the ENGAGE campaign were the shift of mobility habits from individual cars to public transport and bikes, car sharing or soft modes.
  • Private companies have also been involved in the campaign which they considered an opportunity to improve cooperation with the city and to promote their services to the citizens. For example, some taxi drivers have committed to start using biofuel instead of gasoline and diesel in their cars.

The Key achievements of ENGAGE campaign in Ivanic-Grad are the following:

  • 77 tones of CO2 emissions prevented and 64,000 KWh of primary energy saved by engaging citizens and renovating public buildings within a year;
  • On average, a citizen has reduced his/her annual CO2 emissions by 17% within a year thanks to the campaign;
  • Joined the Covenant of Mayors in 2009;
  • As a signatory to the Covenant of Mayors the city of Ivanić-Grad commits to reducing its CO2 emissions by 21% by 2020.

Transformative Potential

The ENGAGE campaign run by Ivanić-Grad municipality encouraged citizens to take concrete actions and have more sustainable lifestyle. It also represented an opportunity for strengthening the dialogue and cooperation between the city and its community. The lessons learnt from the overall ENGAGE campaign shows that campaigns need to be dynamic and they need to continue for a long time in order to engage as much stakeholders as possible. In addition, a key success factor remains the integration of such a campaign into already existing initiatives of the local administration.

More Information

ENGAGE campaign

ENGAGE Campaign guidebook

Energy cities best practices

European Commission blog article

References

Cities of Tomorrow ENGAGE campaign in Ivanić-Grad