::: Sustainable Cities Awards
The Sustainable Cities Award recognises the significant progress made by local authorities in their sustainable development activities. The award itself helps to raise awareness of the need for sustainable development and mobilises support for sustainability as well as highlighting good examples and encourages exchange of experience and networking.
The European Sustainable City Award had been held on four occasions in 1996, 1997, 1999 and 2003, giving international recognition to European local authorities for their efforts made towards sustainable urban development and has proven to be successful in encouraging cities and towns all over Europe in their ‘sustainability activities'. The winners of the awards were:
| 1996 | 1997 | 1999 | 2003 | |||
| Albertslund | Calvia | Barcelona | Ferrara | |||
| Dunkirk | Heidelberg | Gdansk | Heidelberg | |||
| Graz | Stockholm | Munich | Oslo | |||
| Leicester | Veliko Turnavo | Norwich | ||||
| The Hague | Tampere |
The European Sustainable City Award 2003 was launched with the aim to:
- Recognise the work carried out by the administration and departments of local authorities in Europe with regards to sustainable development;
- Raise awareness on local sustainable development and mobilise support within communities;
- Highlight examples of good practices and encourage exchange of experience; and
- Assess and disseminate innovative approaches enabling efficient action towards/for sustainability in certain fields.
Development of the Application and Assessment Processes 2003:
The 2003 award was organised through the development an application form containing quantitative and qualitative questions. The questionnaire consisted of four broad overall sections, which examined visions, strategies and political commitment; partnership and participation; action planning and implementation; and assessment. An additional section examined innovative approaches in the fields of waste/resource management; poverty and social equity; and health issues. This broad basis for the questionnaire was developed by ICLEI, with specialist networks developing the innovative sections. All members of the Campaign's Steering Committee were responsible for the development of the final approved version of the questionnaire.
65 applications from 20 countries were received for this year's award, the largest amount of applications coming from Italy. Upon receipt of the completed questionnaires, the responses to the quantitative questions were submitted to an electronic database scoring system, which provided a first ranking of the applications. This was followed by an assessment of the qualitative responses of all 65 applications. This assessment was undertaken by the members of the Campaign's Steering Committee during a two-day meeting in Brussels, with each application being separately assessed independently by two separate members of the Committee. This gave rise to an average score for the assessed qualitative questions, which was combined with the results of the quantitative assessment. These two rankings were then used as the basis for an agreement of the overall ranking of the submitted applications leading to the selection of 12 nominated finalists.
The 12 nominated finalists were:
- City of Botkyrka (Sweden)
- Municipality of Escaldes-Engordany (Andorra)
- City of Ferrara (Italy)
- City of Heidelberg (Germany)
- City of Helsinki (Finland)
- Municipality of Kolding (Denmark)
- Municipality of Laigueglia (Italy)
- Province of Modena (Italy)
- Municipality of Nikolaev (Ukraine)
- City of Oslo (Norway)
- Municipality of Ramnicu Valcea (Romania)
- City of Seville (Spain)
Evaluation Seminar in Verona
The 12 nominees were invited to present their work during the seminar ‘Good European Practices on Urban Sustainable Development' held in Verona (Italy) on the 5th and 6th of May 2003. This best practice exchange seminar was organised by the city of Verona and the European Sustainable Cities and Towns Campaign in collaboration with the Italian LA21 Association. The seminar was held in conjunction with the General Assembly of the Association and therefore provided the opportunity for the 12 nominees to meet not only with other finalists but also with Italian local authorities representatives and to learn about each others‘ experiences.
Each of the 12 nominees provided a presentation to show how their city/province is delivering sustainable development, the processes in place and achievements made to date. After each presentation, three experts, selected by the Campaign Steering Committee for their outstanding expertise and knowledge in urban sustainability matters questioned the nominees on their presentations and asked for clarifications if and when necessary.
The three selected experts were:
Dr. Bob Evans, Director of the Sustainable Cities Research Institute, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
Dr. Pietro Garau, Universita di Roma «La Sapienza », First Faculty of Architecture, Formerly Director Research and Development Division, United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat)
Dr. Karl-Ludwig Schibel, Board of the Climate Alliance of the European Cities, Director, Fair of Practical Utopias, Città di Castello.
