First LA took place in Berlin in February!
First Learning Activity (LA) in the sociSDG project took place in Berlin from 12th to 16th of February 2018. Partners met at Steinbeis University Berlin, at Institute Corporate Responsibility Management. During five days of the Learning activity, through lectures, study visits, webinar and interactive workshops, project partners shared the knowledge regarding the Sustainable Development Goal 11: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.
Its participants were members of nine renowned European organizations in the field of SDGs: The Croatian Institute for CSR (coordinator, Croatia, Global Impact Grid (Germany), LUM University (Italy), Pontis Foundation (Slovakia), Homo Eminens (Lithuania), Materahub (Italy), LatConsul SIA (Latvia), Datamaran (UK), Kaleidoscope Futures (UK). SociSDGs is a project focused on achieving greater awareness and knowledge of adults, companies and decision makers when it comes to the measurement and implementation of social SDGs in business strategies, as well as the overall matter of sustainable development connected to the SDGs.
Considering the fact that the primary goal of the project is adult education and the exchange of the best practices between project partners when it comes to the social SDGs, a five-day learning activity was designed in order to understand and raise awareness of the Sustainable Development Goal SDG11: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.
It was impressive and inspiring to listen to solutions for making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable:
-The Learning activity was opened with the screening of segment from a film Closing the Loop, by professor Wayne Visser, PhD.
-Thomas Stellmach, planning expert from TSPA, a founding member of UN-Habitat and team member of Urban Coop Berlin presented the project partners a new perspective on the urban planning and how human scale raises together with the urban development
-Yannis Salavopoulos, MBA, managing director at CAPITALS Circle and Global Sustain, showed the consortium sustainability management tools and drivers for disaster prevention and recovery
-Alessandro Zito from Materahub presented the project consortium the sustainable community practices adopted in Latin America after the occurrence of natural-anthropic disasters
-Nadine Kuhla von Bergmann and Gian Marco Morigi on Urban Change Agents from Creative Climate Cities, moderated an interactive and useful workshop on Drivers of SDG11 along which the partners discussed UCAs with focus on relevant key performance impact measures to enhance their scaling and proliferation
-Azra Sulejmanpasic and Goran Ladisic from Freewa shared with project partners their contribution to sourcing free drinking water all around the world with the help of their Freewa mobile application
-Professor Kosta Mathéy, PhD, showed the project consortium revolutionary examples from European architectural urban renewal and revitalization (URR)
-Jaka Ćosić from GIS Cloud, presented project partners new ways how geospatial technology is helping us build more sustainable, resilient and responsive cities and communities all around the world
Learning activity also included a visit to the EUREF-Campus, a Berlin example of sustainable and smart home base for companies, start-ups and initiatives working in the fields of energy, sustainability and networked mobility. Partners had a chance to see Infarm, an indoor farming venture based in Berlin - innovative, full of passion and at the forefront of urban agricultural sustainability initiatives. The learning activity also featured a tour of Prinzessinnengärten, a new urban place of learning where locals can come together to experiment and discover more about organic food production, biodiversity and climate protection help project partners to understand how to adapt to climate change and learn about healthy eating, sustainable living and future-oriented urban lifestyle.
During the learning activity, project consortium organized a webinar on the SDG11 with speakers Abhay Adhikari, PhD, Aristide Athanassiadis (Metabolism of Cities) and dr. A.R. Jachnow, Head of Urban Strategies and Planning (USP) at Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS), University of Rotterdam. Webinar provided information about measuring social impact of companies in regard to SDG11 and their integration in the business models.
During the learning activity, a webinar on the SDG11 has been held and recorded:
Webinar provided information about best practice of SDG11 and their integration in the business models.
Materials:
Urban metabolism, circular economy and SDG11. What are the links?
Sustainable community practices to face natural-anthropic disasters
Strategies for sustainable urban renewal