For the seventh and second-to-last project meeting of IB-Green, project partners travelled to the Dutch city of Arnhem in the Netherlands close to the German border.
The spring
weather couldn’t have been more perfect for one of the central elements of the
project meeting: a site visit of the business park Gelderse Poort, which the partnership
reached after a quick and activating e-bike ride.
In the business park, park manager Milan Zeewald joined the partnership to explain how she is meeting with the tenants of the business park. If they want to implement climate adaptation measures, they can work with a consultancy to plan suitable green-blue infrastructure for their premises (the municipality of Arnhem is offering to cover 75% of these design costs). Further, if the companies chose to go for implementation there is a green-blue subsidy available for ca 30-40% of the costs.
Working with entrepreneurs to consult them on potential green and blue infrastructure measures, the municipality of Arnhem has made progress by switching from one-on-one consultations to design sessions where a number of businesses are invited. In these workshops, companies can think of how green-blue infrastructure could be implemented specifically on their plots. These designs are later used to calculate costs of planed measures and to show the discount from the municipalitie’s green-blue subsidy.
On the second day of the IB-Green project meeting in Arnhem, the partnership participated in the symposium “Climate-resilient working landscapes “ at Cleantech Park Arnhem. The symposium was hosted by the initiative “Working landscapes of the future”, the province Gelderland, the metropol-region Arnhem-Nijmegen and the municipality of Arnhem.
In a panel discussion, the focus was on how to motivate and convince entrepreneurs of the value of greening their premises. Similar to what IB-Green project partners have experienced, some insights included that it is necessary to get commitment from entrepreneurs instead of a top-down approach from the government. Further, it takes time to build trust and get to know the wishes of entrepreneurs.
IB-Green organised a workshop at the symposium to share approaches from the project with Dutch stakeholders. In the workshop moderated by Hélène Rizzotti, concepts for mobilising municipalities from Sandyford Business District and the Hessian Agency for Nature Conservation, Environment and Geology were presented.
Finally, the partnership used the project meeting as an opportunity to jointly work on several project outputs, for example the partnership-wide maintenance plan. Different IB-Green project partners also presented progress and results of their pilot actions, as well as lessons they have learned so far. For example, Anna-Christine Sander and Juliane Kuckuk from the regional authority HLNUG had good experiences with showing Hessian municipalities on-site how small changes in business parks can be implemented, for instance where greening can be upgraded. Grainne McDermott from Dun Laoghaire City Council explained how an unconventional approach with an ice-cream truck, helped create opportunities to speak with many families about what they would like to see in the new civic park in Sandyford Business District.
The partnership concluded the project meeting with an exceptional dinner in the elegant setting of the Stadsvilla Sonsbeek and the insight, that project meetings are always too short when the partnership is such a great group.
As always, a big thanks go out to Hans van Ammers and Lisa Wildenberg for hosting us in Arnhem and organising such a delightful project meeting!