European Project Aims to Spread Tools for Sustainable Regional Development

How do you practically integrate sustainability into regional development, and how do you measure progress? In the EU project ARIES4, Glava Energy Center and Karlstad University collaborate with partners from three other European regions to identify best practices and useful tools. The starting point is the experiences of companies, universities, regions, and municipalities.

– European regions have different conditions and needs. We tackle and follow up on our challenges in various ways. Here, we have the opportunity to compare and learn between countries, which is both challenging and rewarding, says Lisa Gärdt, sustainability coordinator at Glava Energy Center and participant in the project.

Four European regions—Navarra in Spain, Southern Denmark, Gabrovo in Bulgaria, and Värmland in Sweden—are part of ARIES4, co-financed by the EU through Erasmus+. The partners include representatives from companies, universities, vocational education, municipalities, and regions in the different countries.

EU Imposes Sustainability Requirements

The project focuses on the regions' work with strategies for smart specialization. Smart specialization is the EU’s strategy for regional competitiveness and innovation, requiring each region to identify its main strengths and assets and focus on improving these areas. A region must have such an S3 strategy in place to receive financial support from the EU’s structural funds.

– But focusing on your strengths isn’t enough. Regions must also demonstrate that investments in smart specialization are carried out in an ecologically, economically, and socially sustainable way in relation to the EU’s climate goals and the UN’s global goals, says Lisa Gärdt.

Since 2019, when the European Green Deal was introduced, the EU has gradually increased the sustainability requirements in smart specialization strategies. S3 is evolving into S4, as expressed in EU terminology, and European regions must show that they are addressing this issue.

Best Practices and Tools

ARIES4 examines best practices in both working methods and follow-up models in the four participating regions. The focus is on experiences from small and medium-sized enterprises, universities, vocational training, municipalities, and regions. Additionally, a literature review has been conducted to identify relevant sustainability indicators for regional development.

So far, the project has delivered a catalog of potential sustainability indicators, a report on best policy tools, case studies of SMEs’ sustainability work, a self-assessment tool for SMEs, and a tool for monitoring sustainability indicators in different regions.

No Simple Recipe

One conclusion is that there is no simple recipe or magical ingredient for integrating sustainability into regional smart specialization strategies.

– For example, if a region wants to track the use of bicycles as a mode of transport, measuring the length of bike lanes alone is unlikely to be sufficient. There is rarely a perfect indicator for measuring progress; a combination of indicators is needed. A region must develop a deep understanding of each challenge to choose the right measures and monitor its progress, says Lisa Gärdt.

Another conclusion is that it is also difficult to directly transfer a working methodology from one geographical region and context to another. Moa Tunström, director of the interdisciplinary Center for Research on Societal Change at Karlstad University and also a participant in ARIES4, points this out.

– There is no definitive set of sustainability indicators that fit all geographies or industrial sectors. Socioeconomic data, for example, can be highly location-specific and must be viewed in its contemporary political context. Measuring sustainable regional development is sometimes significant, but to foster learning between regions or countries, more than comparable quantitative data is likely needed, says Moa Tunström.

Image Caption: E18 passes through a wind farm in the forest between Kristinehamn and Karlskoga. In the background, Lake Vänern can be seen at sunset. Photo: Øyvind Lund.

Seminar on Sustainable Regional Development October 17, 2024

Title: In the Same Landscape: What is a Sustainable Region?
When: Thursday, October 17, 14:30-16:00
Where: Karlstad University, Center for Research on Societal Change
Organizer: Center for Research on Sustainable Societal Change, CRS
Registration: By October 11 via email to crs@kau.se. 

What is a sustainable region? What factors or indicators should we look at to determine whether regional development is sustainable? And how is the concept of sustainability given meaning in regional politics and administration? The seminar will be conducted as a conversation based on a European comparative project on sustainable development at the regional level (ARIES4) and a new doctoral dissertation in political science on sustainability in Swedish regional development policy.

Panel:

• Moa Tunström, Director of CRS and participant in ARIES4
• Lisa Gärdt, Sustainability Coordinator at Glava Energy Center and participant in ARIES4
• Johanna Tangnäs, Postdoc at the Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU).
• Moderator: Malin Vikner, Region Värmland