Much good work is being carried out across Europe by both private and public sector organisations that are trying to improve their impact on the environment. The total amount of good practice is therefore growing rapidly. Unfortunately most organisations have not got the resources to keep an eye on best practice everywhere. They will either not be aware of what others have done or will not have the energy, time or resources to put best practice in place even where it is known.

Networking allows best practice to be shared and developed together. Fact-finding, R&D and development of solutions can be pooled. This means that many more improvement steps can be undertaken if working in a network than if going it alone. A successful network can share R&D as well as the burden of pilot implementation and full roll out of new services and systems.

Networks can be made up of many different type of organisations:

• Adjacent municipalities that have issues in common that require a joint local response;
• Municipalities from a wider geographical region, which are similar in size or composition and therefore have an interest in similar solutions;
• Municipalities and businesses working together to deal with joint environmental issues such as supply chain or waste management matters;
• Typical applications for a network could be the joint implementation of Environmental Management systems or joint environmentally sustainable procurement.

Global to Local has been involved in several aspects of networking of organisations. At its simplest this can be a joint training event between different municipalities, where good practice is spread and developed. The results are taken home and the best parts implemented.

At a more advanced level we have worked with a number of cities to help them to jointly improve their local environment (The municipal network for environmentally sustainable cities included Kiev, Donetsk, Kharkow, Mariupol and Nikolaev). Here each city, using a common EMS methodology, majored in one particular area of environmental concern. The results as they emerged were shared with and bettered by all the participants. Emerging new city regulations were shared between all partners.

The project demonstrated the usefulness of actively co-operating in a network and has resulted in demands for a much larger network to be set up.
We help put together networks;

• We provide project management functions;
• We provide help desk functions for the members of the network;
• We provide training and develop appropriate training methodologies to help the network develop;
• We have expertise in preparing and submitting proposals if additional funding is needed.

To see the networking projects that G2L has worked on, click here.