On May 8th, 2022, Ghent Climate City brought citizens and stakeholders together for the second edition of Gent aan Zee. The climate festival is the flagship action of a broader strategy to lower thresholds, endorse motivators and induce lasting behavioural change towards sustainable living.
The many activities included workshops, an information fair, in-depth inspiration sessions, and a plant-based barbecue contest.
We paid particular attention to youth with tailored activities and by actively involving our youngest stakeholders, students with innovative sustainable ideas. Leading up to 2024, Ghent’s year as European Youth Capital, this focus on youth will become even more crucial.
Ghent Climate City relies heavily on Ghentians and their innovative ideas, commitment and perseverance. Residents, businesses, schools, and associations have been working in their own ways to climate-proof the city.
Raising awareness and building relationships leading to carbon reductions requires an ongoing investment. Getting everyone involved in the climate transition is the first of eight pillars of the Ghent Climate Plan, our local implementation of the European Green Deal.
Gent aan Zee aims not only to promote socio-cultural transformation by raising awareness among citizens, but also to strengthen our partnership with stakeholders, giving them the opportunity to reach a wider audience, meet other stakeholders, inspire and be inspired – and thus accelerate socio-economic transformation.
Gent aan Zee is a prime example of the Ghent Climate City approach: we like to do things together, turn climate challenges into new opportunities, do not point fingers, and celebrate our quirky charm.
“Gent aan Zee is a day full of inspiration, enthusiasm, and love for our environment. The festival brings climate solutions together in a laid-back atmosphere, makes information accessible for all Ghentians and inspires action and activism. Although citizen actions alone will not solve the climate crisis, they are – together with actions taken by organisations and governments – indispensable to systemic changes and climate transition.” Tine Heyse, Deputy Mayor
In the weeks leading up to the festival, we partnered up with organisations, knowledge institutions and citizens to organise in-depth inspiration sessions and debates. There were talks by our own city government, organisations, scholars, and citizens on three subjects: the Heat Island Effect, the future of agriculture and the use of bio-based material in construction.
The festival itself offered a wide range of activities for all ages:
15 workshops (with 353 participants), including: How to talk about climate change, Make your wardrobe sustainable, Food fermentation and Plant your own façade garden.
7 hands-on activities such as litter picking, urban foraging and a Repair Café
An information fair displaying local businesses, organisations, citizen initiatives, educational institutions, and Ghent’s own sustainable offer (including Gent en Garde and De Energiecentrale)
Many activities organised for and by youth and children, including Circular crafts, Teens Repair and DIY seed bombs. We also displayed portraits of secondary school students with a personal quote about Ghent’s climate transition.
De Gouden Groentensaté finals, a barbecue contest to promote plant-based food as part of our Green Deal protein shift strategy.
A food corner including 14 local caterers with a sustainable, plant-based/vegetarian, local and zero waste offer.
A bar serving free tap water, locally brewed beer, organic wine and – to avoid the impact of transporting water – soft drinks mixed on location using tap water.
In addition to being a prime example of how Ghent’s Climate Policy is implemented, Gent aan Zee is also prime example of what the policy does.
The event features all themes from Ghent’s Climate Plan and addresses the offer for year-round support including personal advice on energy-efficient housing, educational workshops for schools and organisations, and professional guidance and financial support for innovative ideas.
The combination of bottom-up experiments and the city’s support to make those experiments thrive has always been at the core of Ghent’s transition. That’s why Gent aan Zee strongly emphasises co-creation and participation in all its forms.
First, getting all the stakeholders of our climate policy together in one place allows us as a local government to further develop our relationship with them. These strong partnerships have been fundamental to the success of our current climate policy and will become even more important leading up to the Fair Local Green Deal – which will be drawn up with the support of ICLEI.
Secondly, the information fair and workshops give stakeholders a unique opportunity to reach a far broader audience than they usually would. Gent aan Zee is also an ideal time for stakeholders to meet and inspire each other. In fact, many of them referred to Gent aan Zee as a fertile ground for innovative ideas and plans.
Finally, we give young entrepreneurs the opportunity to test how their products or ideas resonate with the audience. A fitting example of that is Bread2B, an academic research project from HoGent recycling bread into beer. They organised a tasting and let the visitors vote on two versions of their freshly brewed beer.
Gent aan Zee brought together over 4000 citizens and 90 stakeholders of Ghent’s Climate Policy. The offer was well-received and covered a broad range of subjects. The feedback we received from stakeholders and visitors shows that the mission to raise awareness and strengthen partnerships was completed. To cite but a few:
“22 new members, 30 participants to our façade gardening workshop, 40+ appliances fixed in our Repair Café and 60 children making seed bombs. We spent the entire day networking and brainstorming with other organisations and are very much looking forward to the next edition!” Gents MilieuFront is a local environmental association with 3000+ members.
“The crowd was genuinely interested. We had tons of inspiring conversations and met 40 potential customers.” De Wassende Maan is a local biodynamic farm.
“Gent aan Zee is a great initiative! It reflects the city’s commitment towards climate neutrality and, at the same time, its quirkiness. It resonated well with my audience: my Instagram stories about Gent aan Zee performed well above average.” Laura Van De Woestyne (@laurafromthedessert) is a sustainability content creator, born and raised in Ghent.
Both car-sharing cooperation Partago and renewable energy cooperation Energent had new cooperators sign up on site.
Importantly, Gent aan Zee is, just like numerous other actions, part of our broader strategy to promote sustainability and behaviour change. Hence, we discuss the impact of Gent aan Zee referring to (1) the visitor survey of the individual event, (2) the city’s monitoring instrument for citizen behaviour in general, and (3) the festival as a testing ground for low waste events in Ghent.
First, the visitor survey performed one month after Gent aan Zee shows that the event met its goal to inspire action: 46% of respondents said they were inspired to make concrete plans towards a more sustainable lifestyle.
Second, the results of Buurtmonitor, a triennial inquiry of citizen behaviour through which we measure the effectiveness of our strategy, show a year-over-year increase in sustainable behaviour amongst citizens. Between 2017 and 2020, the most striking increase happened in the fields of mobility and food. In 2020, biking or walking for short distances became a habit for, respectively, 15.9 % and 7% more citizens compared to 2017. Over the same period, the popularity of locally sourced and vegetarian food increased by 110% and 28,7%. These numbers show that Ghentians are increasingly committed to the climate transition and that our strategy towards behaviour change is working.
Third, the festival itself set the example for future events with its innovative low-waste policy. Drinks were served in reusable cups, free tap water was available on site and no single-use food containers were admitted. Visitors were asked to bring their own plates and cutlery. Some extra stock as well as a self-service dishwashing station were provided. To go a little further than avoiding waste production only, two types of litter-picking activities were organised throughout the day. One in the streets surrounding the festival, and one in a canoe on the river Lys.
ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability
European Secretariat
Leopoldring 3
79098 Freiburg
Germany
Tel.: +49 (0) 761 – 368 92 0
Fax: +49 (0) 761 – 368 92 19
E-mail: info@sustainablecities.eu
Website: www.sustainablecities.eu