Sustainable Waste Management Project: Freda the Frog Education Initiative

No abstract available

Sustainable Waste Management Project: Haverton Hill Furniture Reuse Scheme

No abstract available

Sustainable Waste Management Project: Newcastle City Council Recycling Centres

No abstract available

Sustainable Waste Management Project: Home composting promotion in Newcastle

No abstract available

Sustainable Waste Management Project: Promotion of cloth nappy use in Durham

No abstract available

Sustainable Waste Management Project: Haverton Hill Furniture Reuse Scheme

No abstract available

The condition of urban climate experimentation

As the trend of urban climate experimentation continues, many accounts now seek to identify how it can be harnessed towards responses of sufficient scale and magnitude for the crises at hand. The imperative is to move beyond experimentation. Yet some authors now suggest that this may not be so straightforward for, they argue, we increasingly inhabit a condition of permanent experimentation. Taking its cue from this premise, this article explores where the condition of experimentation may have emerged from. I trace these roots to the limit points now encountered within ecologically modernist governance – the shifting dynamics of governing authority, the relation between knowledge and policy, how to address indeterminacy, and what progress or improvement looks like in the condition of a climate-changed socio-natural world. Viewed in this light, experimentation, I want to suggest, represents a significant and potentially paradigm-shifting break with established norms and practices concerning the nature of the climate problem. Fundamentally, this line of thought means that it may neither be possible nor even desirable to abandon experimentation and to return to more centralized, controlled, and certain responses for it is from within the difficulties of governing a climate-changing world through this paradigm that experimentation has arisen in the first place. The vital task is instead to understand the politics and possibilities of experimentation for progressive and just urban sustainability

Governing Sustainable Waste Management: Designing sustainable waste management into the housing sector

In seeking to shift municipal waste policy towards sustainability, policy-makers at European, national and local levels are facing the challenge of how to engage householders in reducing, reusing and recycling their waste. This in turn means engaging with the arena within which day to day waste management activities are practiced – the home. In view of this critical relationship between waste policy and household practices, this research project1 has sought to examine: • the ways in which new infrastructures for managing waste are being ‘designed in’ to new housing developments and renovated kitchens in the UK and Europe; • the barriers identified by key actors in the as impending the pursuit of a more integrated approach to housing design and waste management and how these might be overcome; • examples of best practice currently being developed in the UK and their applicability in the context of the North-East of England

Local climate change policy in the United Kingdom and Germany

"For over a decade climate change has been considered one of the most significant political issues facing the international community. In order to address this challenge, attention needs to be focused not only at the international level of treaties and conventions, but also on how climate protection policy is taking shape at the local level. Germany and the UK have been leading countries for international action on climate change. However, the reductions in domestic emissions of greenhouse gas emissions achieved benefited in both countries from specific circumstances. This report details the national climate change policy, the structure of local governments, their competencies and powers, the institutionalisation of local climate change policy, the most important spheres of action and the different roles played by municipalities in local climate protection policy in both countries. Despite the formal differences in the system of local government in Germany and the UK, the spheres of action as well as the roles of municipalities in local climate protection show clear tendencies towards convergence. The challenges in addressing greenhouse gas emissions from the transport and planning sectors have meant that in both countries attention has focused on the energy sector as the primary arena for local policy and local action. At the same time new governance forms dominate the roles taken by local governments with respect to climate protection. The role taken by local governments in Germany is becoming more 'enabling', and hence like the UK. The convergence between the two countries can be explained by internal (national) as well as external (European) factors. First, it is evident that the constitutionally guaranteed autonomy of German municipalities has been reduced considerably by their decreasing and inadequate financial resources, while UK local authorities have the potential to gain more autonomy. Second, British municipalities are mandated by the national government to take local climate and energy policy more seriously. Therefore, they have caught up with German municipalities, which are engaged in climate protection policy only on a voluntary basis. Third, the increasing European integration has significant impacts on local climate protection policy. The liberalisation of the energy and transport markets changed the German situation so that it is more akin to the UK situation, where many services are no longer provided by the municipalities themselves. The increasing convergence of both countries in the area of local climate protection suggests that there is considerable scope for experimentation with new policy instruments and for cross-national learning at the local level between German and British municipalities." (author's abstract)"Seit mehr als zehn Jahren wird der Klimawandel als eine der wichtigsten politischen Herausforderungen betrachtet, mit denen sich die internationale Gemeinschaft konfrontiert sieht. Um diese meistern zu können, darf sich die Aufmerksamkeit nicht nur auf Verträge und Konventionen auf der internationalen Ebene beschränken, sondern muss sich auch auf die Umsetzung des Klimaschutzes auf der lokalen Ebene richten. Deutschland und Großbritannien sind im Bereich des Klimaschutzes international führende Nationen. Allerdings wurde die Reduktion der Treibhausgasemissionen in beiden Ländern durch die jeweiligen Rahmenbedingungen erheblich begünstigt. Der vorliegende Bericht beschäftigt sich mit der nationalen Klimaschutzpolitik, der Struktur der Kommunen, ihren Zuständigkeiten, der Institutionalisierung der lokalen Klimapolitik, den wichtigsten Handlungsbereichen sowie mit den unterschiedlichen Rollen der Kommunen im Bereich des Klimaschutzes in beiden Ländern. Trotz der formalen Differenzen zwischen den deutschen und den britischen Kommunen zeigen sich sowohl bei den Handlungsbereichen als auch bei der Rolle der Kommunen im lokalen Klimaschutz deutliche Tendenzen hin zur Konvergenz der beiden Länder. Die lokale Politik und das lokale Handeln konzentrieren sich in beiden Ländern primär auf den Energiesektor, während in den Handlungsbereichen Verkehr und Stadtplanung erhebliche Probleme bestehen, die Treibhausgasemissionen zu reduzieren. Gleichzeitig wird die lokale Klimapolitik in beiden Fällen durch neue Governance-Formen dominiert. Die deutschen Kommunen übernehmen mehr und mehr eine aktivierende ('enabling') Rolle und werden den britischen Kommunen damit immer ähnlicher. Erklären lässt sich die Konvergenz zwischen den beiden Ländern sowohl durch interne (nationale) als auch durch externe (europäische) Faktoren: Erstens zeigt sich, dass sich die in der Verfassung garantierte Autonomie der deutschen Kommunen durch ihre abnehmenden und nicht-adäquaten finanziellen Ressourcen beträchtlich reduziert hat, während die Autonomie der britischen Kommunen tendenziell zunimmt. Zweitens wurden die britischen Kommunen durch nationale Vorgaben dazu verpflichtet, sich im Bereich der lokalen Klima- und Energiepolitik stärker zu engagieren. Sie haben daher gegenüber den deutschen Kommunen, die Klimaschutz als freiwillige Aufgabe betreiben, aufgeholt. Drittens hat die zunehmende europäischen Integration gravierende Auswirkungen auf den kommunalen Klimaschutz. Durch die Liberalisierung der Energie- und Verkehrsmärkte hat sich die Lage in Deutschland stark verändert und an die britische Situation angeglichen, da die entsprechenden Dienstleistungen vielfach nicht mehr von den Kommunen selbst angeboten werden. Durch die zunehmende Konvergenz des lokalen Klimaschutzes in Deutschland und Großbritannien sind beträchtliche Spielräume für Experimente mit neuen Politikinstrumenten und das Lernen zwischen deutschen und britischen Städten entstanden." (Autorenreferat