Education | Participation

Green transformation of local governments

In 2025 we are carrying out training and advisory activities in ​​green and energy transformation. During this project, we will support local governments of municipalities with up to 200,000 inhabitants from all over Poland with knowledge and good practices. We will implement it in partnership with the Shipyard Foundation.

What do we want to achieve?

The effects of climate change are already being felt locally: increasingly violent atmospheric phenomena, such as strong winds, heavy rainfall accompanied by flash floods, heat waves and long periods without rain are having a major impact on agricultural activity. There is no doubt that we have found ourselves in a situation requiring quick and decisive mitigation actions (reducing CO2 emissions into the atmosphere) and adaptation actions (allowing adaptation to new living conditions). They must be taken at every level, including the local level. The role must be played by the authorities and officials responsible for spatial planning, infrastructure development, and management of resources such as water and energy, but also by local stakeholders, demanding faster action and supporting the efforts of self-government officials. Without a doubt, local government officials and social activists are local leaders with significant potential to introduce social change – sustainable, climate-responsible development at the local level. However, to act, they need knowledge and inspiration on how and what to do – that is still lacking.

The project aims to develop the skills needed for the ecological transformation of entire communities of small and medium-sized communes (up to 200,000 residents). The project is addressed to:

  • people working in offices and organizational units of communes,
  • industry specialists, people working in LGDs, associations of local governments and other institutions from the environment of local governments,
  • residents of communes.

Ecological transformation in six selected local governments

Recruitment and diagnosis

By the end of February 2025, we will recruit local governments that want to prepare with us for the process of green and energy transformation. In each of the selected partner municipalities, we will conduct a diagnosis, including an assessment of current municipal policies, and competence needs of employees responsible for implementing actions accelerating ecological transformation, including: reducing greenhouse gas emissions, implementing renewable energy sources and increasing energy efficiency, managing rainwater and greenery in the city. The diagnosis will define specific goals and tasks for each municipality, that it wants to implement in the short term (still during the project) and long term (extending beyond the project implementation period). We will prepare individual support plans, including training and consulting.

Training and consulting

The topics of training and consulting will include:

  • improving the energy efficiency of buildings, including investments by the DNSH principle,
  • development of energy communities,
  • reducing the commune’s carbon footprint,
  • increasing competencies in the field of permitting, i.e. procedures for issuing permits for the implementation of renewable energy sources and distribution networks,
  • rainwater management,
  • managing greenery in the city.

The support will take a varied form depending on the needs of the commune, e.g. basic online and stationary training for all employees, specialist industry workshops for a specific group of people responsible for planning and implementing a given policy, expert advice in the form of individual online and live meetings, conducting meetings/workshops with key stakeholders. Effective implementation of ecological transformation requires cooperation between people working in different departments and units, therefore an important element of support will be enabling discussion and substantive work between people often operating separately (project activity instead of silo).

The training and consulting support will also include small implementations (e.g. changing energy purchase rates for public buildings, allowing for greater savings) that provide a sense of quick success and increase motivation for further transformation activities. They will also constitute good practices disseminated during the project closing conference.

Stakeholder debates

One of the key competencies necessary to carry out ecological transformation is the ability to involve the local community in the decision-making process. Therefore, an element of support for municipalities will be assistance in organizing citizens’ debates on one of the above issues, key for each municipality and selected in agreement with partner municipalities. A citizens’ debate is an open meeting on public matters important to a given community, used for joint planning of activities and developing recommendations.

To prepare partner municipalities to organize the debate, we will first organize training for them, providing organizational and logistical guidelines and all necessary materials (framework scenarios of debates, etc.). During the preparation stage for the debate, we will also actively support them through remote individual and/or group consultations.

Open training program

From May 2025, we will launch an open training program for specialists and officials from local governments with up to 200,000 residents.

E-learning

The program will begin with a moderated online course covering the following topics:

  • introduction to the issues of adaptation and mitigation of climate change;
  • calculating the carbon footprint of a commune,
  • establishing energy cooperatives and permitting,
  • energy modernization of buildings with particular emphasis on the DNSH principle in communal investments,
  • dialogue and engaging the local community in ecological transformation.

Course participants will gain access to:

  • introductory materials for independent study (films, short articles),
  • five 2-hour webinars.
  • participation in a group task, which will be a pretext for deepening local issues.

Onsite training

We will invite participants of the online training to participate in one of four 3-day on-site training courses on:

  • calculating the carbon footprint of a commune,
  • establishing energy cooperatives and permitting,
  • energy modernization of buildings with particular emphasis on the DNSH principle in communal investments,
  • dialogue and engaging the local community in ecological transformation.

On-site training courses will include specialist lectures, workshop work on real solutions and study visits. An important element of the training courses will be the opportunity to exchange experiences between people from different communes with similar scope of responsibility.

We will carry out the training from May to October 2025.

Conference “Good practices of ecological transformation”

We will disseminate good practices collected during the preparation of the training program and developed by the municipalities supported in the ecological transformation during the conference summarizing the project. We will invite representatives of local governments and their environment (industry specialists, LGDs, municipal unions and associations, etc.) to the conference.

The primary goal of the conference will be to increase knowledge about the actions that are already and/or can be taken at the local government level to reduce the release of greenhouse gases, implement renewable energy sources and increase energy efficiency or combat energy poverty. The second goal of the event will be to open up representatives of the local government sector to dialogue and cooperation with the local community in the context of taking action for ecological transformation.

We will carry out a two-day conference in the last quarter of 2025. Participation in the conference will be free of charge. Additionally, we will conduct an online broadcast.

The event will be interactive, the program will include discussion panels, World Cafe, parallel workshops, study visits and networking sessions for people who want to establish new contacts.

The project activities implement the public task of Carrying out educational, research and development activities and training and advisory activities in the area of ​​green and energy transformation, implemented as part of Investment G1.1.4 of the National Reconstruction Plan (indicator G9G), implemented at the request of the Minister of Funds and Regional Policy.

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