The audience engaged in the discussions, and the insights hereunder are a mixture of speaker and moderator notes, audience reflections and that of the author.
Smart Governance
The Smart Governance panel was well received and followed by discussions in six groups.
- Mapping of the benefits and interests of stakeholders is crucial: it forms the basis for common goals. These goals need to be measurable in order to sustain credibility. However, as suggested, silo thinking is still going strong and there is a lack of trust (especially in the private sector) between potential partners that prevents headway from being made. This can be overcome by cooperation over time.
- 'Planning by rules' is replaced by 'planning by goals'. More regional planning is desired instead of small-scale planning.
- The challenge is often that the economy changes more rapidly than the planning of our environment and societal processes. It is more adapting than actually designing ourselves.
- Smart communities are great, but we also need smart people to use all solutions. Here the big thing is data. On the one hand we often produce a lot of data without knowing what to do with it; on the other, a lot of data needs to be collected in order to run systems efficiently, and this poses privacy questions. It seems reasonable for drivers to pay more for roads than pedestrians, but who is the trustworthy organisation that collects the data? How much about our lifestyles are we ready to reveal?
Society
The Society panel focused on demographic processes, outlined climate change-induced social and health impact and looked at participatory city budgeting and eco-communities.
- Segregation in society poses challenges. However, no one can say how much segregation is good and when you should intervene. Segregation draws on psychology and socio-economic factors. We tend to stick with like-minded people and hence make respective decisions about where we live, where we work and more. On the one hand, segregation can even facilitate engagement, as people have the same values and it is easier to make a common stand. However, this in turn can bring about a risk of becoming selective as more vocal (well-off) communities dominate the engagement process and it is biased in general.
- Evidently, the smaller the establishment, the less segregation there is, and the greater the transparency and accessibility.
- Participatory budgeting in Tartu is a good initiative for both organisational and social learning. 'Small games to play to learn' and nothing big to lose, only gaining potential novel ideas. To increase engagement in this process (2500 people shared their opinions), planning should probably be broken down into smaller, tangible thematic pieces so that it is easier to manage and understand the process as a whole.
- The events that are likely to occur in Estonian society due to changing climate are scrutinised only when something bad is predicted – and this is not the case at the moment for Estonia. The perception of climate issues is quite different in the Nordic countries. However, there is also indirect climate-induced impact that could affect our lives to a great extent in this corner of the world, too (e.g. new diseases and climate refugees).
- Environmental awareness should be raised, to which end state-run (media) campaigns are necessary. Also, regrettably little use is made of social engineering, as there are no strategic plans for designing social processes.
- Eco-communities are a great example of how grass-roots initiatives can lead to desired changes more quickly than institutional frameworks. Urban gardening, renewable and circular energy management, zero waste concept etc.
- If you want to see change, be the change.
- If engagement is sought, the results of engagement should be tangible and immediate. Engagement without empowerment is barely even a one-off show.
Resources
The Resource panel focussed on a diverse range of topics: the bioeconomy, circular resource management, industrial symbiosis, the silver economy and sustainable mobility.
- There are undoubtedly great potential gains to be made in terms of resource efficiency from industrial symbiosis and the circular economy. However, a critical number of public and private drivers are unavoidable. This will not occur intrinsically.
- New potential in resource management can be found in the silver economy, which denotes economic activities related to catering for seniors and the aging population.
- One of the main current and future challenges in achieving a resilient and resource-efficient system can be found in the search for balance between central and local energy production and supply.
- It was clearly showed that there is a great need for change in terms of political will and action to meet the goals set by the EU regarding energy and resource efficiency. The current trend shows an increase in CO2 emissions rather than the anticipated reduction of 11% per capita to 2020. This is to a large extent the result of increased use of private cars for passenger transportation.
- Outlining the regional development of Amsterdam, it was said that regional integration would only be achieved once it was commonly understood that society is stuck with global integration, i.e. regional integration is simply part of a wider perspective.