ACROSS

Aligning public and CoRpOrate Sustainability goalS

Project summary

The European Green Deal aims to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. Many actors are key players to reach sustainability targets at EU level, such as cities and enterprises. Local authorities are facing the challenges of climate change and make huge efforts in adaptation and mitigation, and in preservation of nature values, ecosystem services and biodiversity. Decision makers are committed to reach the ambitious goals of the EU, setting significant objectives in the field of sustainability, as well as interventions and measures accordingly in the urban development policies. The ecological crisis has turned the attention to the need for greater socially responsible behaviour from the private and the public sector. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a concept whereby enterprises integrate social and environmental concerns into their mainstream business operations on a voluntary basis. The main objective of the ACROSS project is to align public and corporate sustainability goals and establish a strategic, long-term cooperation between economic actors and local authorities of participating regions, inspired by an efficient interregional knowledge exchange process. A public-private cooperation model/policy, including financial aspects, will be elaborated, involving stakeholders, in order to improve local development policies addressed by the partners. Leveraging the potential of companies’ CSR policies in the field of sustainable developments, local authorities could multiply their capacities and abilities to mitigate climate change effects promote responsible use of natural resources in cities and regions contributing to achievement of carbon neutrality goals of the EU by 2050.

BURST Role

BURST’s main roles, acting as advisory partner are:

to facilitate the interregional learning process in general
to lead and coordinate the Thematic Expert Team (TET) being responsible for co-designing detailed methodology for all stages of the project, i.e. analysis, knowledge exchange, policy improvement & follow-up
to facilitate peer-reviews & cross-sharing exercises among PPs, helping them to identify best potential opportunities for knowledge exchange, good practice transfer & policy improvement
to draw up a synthesis report, based on Local Analysis Reports drafted and Good Practices identified by PPs
to outline the methodology for the knowledge exchange process
to facilitate online knowledge exchange seminars among PPs, to allow for more in-depth understanding of identified GPs
to draw up a joint guidance for the policy improvement process
to summarise the conclusions of the interregional learning process in a Final Policy-learning Summary Report, and in a user-friendly Guidebook on opportunities for alignment of public and corporate sustainability goals
to draw up a joint monitoring guidance in the follow-up phase

Partnership

Alba Iulia Municipality (Romania)EDC Debrecen Urban and Economic Development Center (HUngary)Kekava municipality local government (Latvia)North Development Agency (Varazdin, Croatia)Municipality of Milan (Italy)City of Hannut (Belgium)University of Liège (Belgium)City Hall of Chisinau Municipality (Moldova)

Synthesis Report on CSR activities supporting policy improvement

Governance

Policy Sustainability