Greenhouse gas-neutral administrations: Empowering professionals | Umweltbundesamt

Background

The aim of greenhouse gas (GHG) neutral administrations is not simply a matter of reducing administrations’ direct climate footprint. Besides administrations’ credibility and function as role model, it is also about the purchasing power of the public sector and practical experience with climate protection.  In order to receive more attention and to be applied more widely, the criteria and necessary steps forward to make administrations GHG-neutral should be advertised, shared, discussed and further developed.

While a lot of research and discussions take place to further develop methodological concepts, criteria and IT tools regarding ghg-neutrality, the necessity of change management and institutionalisation within administrations seems not sufficiently addressed. On the one hand, the management level has to support the goal of GHG-neutrality and to communicate it resolutely and credibly to employees, contractual partners and the general public. Yet on the other hand, it has to make decisions on climate targets, empower the operational level to achieve them and provide adequate personnel, equipment and budget to implement the necessary measures. Such kind of empowerment as well as networks of people in charge for these processes are not sufficiently developed to foster the role model of public administrations from the municipal and regional to the national, European and global level. Therefore, it is necessary to enable the professionals in charge to act jointly in a cross-organizational manner and to keep the process of administrations towards GHG-neutrality on track.

Exploratory Workshop 9th November 2023, Dessau-Roßlau, Germany and Online Workshop 24th November 2023

The transformation companionship started with an in-presence workshop for the deeper exploration of the context and the relevant stakeholder system. In the following online workshop with international participation we

• first, presented the findings of the workshop held on 9 November and extended this picture with the help of participants’ experience and views,
• second, discussed the fields of action to move public administrations towards GHG-neutrality in Europe and beyond and
• third, identified needs and offers how professionals in public administrations practically can empower each other by mutual support.

If you are interested in joining this process, please contact us via email (tes-academy [at] uba [dot] de).

Virtual TES Series

In the context of the TES Academy transformation companionship process on “Greenhouse gas-neutral administrations: Empowering professionals from public administrations to become role models of transformation” we organize a Virtual TES series on related current topics. During every inspirational session two keynote speakers will share their view on a joint topic and present their proposals and best practices. Questions, opinions and further ideas of the participants will then be discussed to inspire them to use the experiences and to foster the debate and the development of collaborations.

Series: Greenhouse gas-neutral administrations | German Evironment Agency