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Every month we celebrate one of our users and listen how FutureproofedCities has helped them with their climate policy so far. Today we give the floor to the municipality of Kampenhout and to the intermunicipality of Haviland. 🎉
With her activities in Haviland and Kampenhout, Elke Delbare is a very busy woman (but still managed to make time for us in her agenda 😊). She has been working on climate for two years and half and today she is wearing two hats: for 2 days a week she works as an employee at the environmental department of Kampenhout and the rest of the time she is an environmental expert at the regional intermunicipality Haviland. Together with a team of four, she monitors the environment and climate plans of the 35 municipalities of Haviland. But that's not all! Next to her work, you will find her in the circus school, skating or on stage.
Wondering how she organises the climate policy in Kampenhout? And how she provides support to the other municipalities from Haviland? Find out below!
How does Kampenhout work on climate today? 🏘
Kampenhout is a small municipality of about 11,000 inhabitants. The climate plan was written in 2015 and from 2016 onwards the focus was on implementing actions. Since autumn 2017 we also work with FutureproofedCities. During these two years, we have already carried out (or participated in) about 30 actions, 10 of which are specific to Kampenhout.
What is for you the biggest challenge in climate policy at the moment? 🧩
In Kampenhout we are currently focusing on rolling out the new climate plan for 2030. Getting as many colleagues and policymakers as possible on board is crucial for this!
At Haviland we notice that for some municipalities it is a challenge to raise the bar in terms of climate ambition. The reason is that they often don't have enough time to implement climate actions and run into political resistance.
What has been your favorite climate action so far? 🏆
That was definitely the thermographic aerial photo that was taken last winter, in collaboration with Haviland. For this purpose, a low airplane flew several times over the municipality on the clear, cold night of 15/02/2018. During this flight, photos of the buildings emitting heat were taken (see photo: the redder a roof is, the less well insulated it is). In October 2018, the photo was presented to the public at the launch event. After 6 months we did a survey and it turned out that 25% of the visitors of this event of which the roof was not insulated, had effectively improved their roof (or were planning to do so).
In addition, we also did an internal action to save electricity in the town hall through a monthly ranking. The reward was a fruit basket, which became bigger the more savings were made. 😉
What has recently inspired you about climate (change)? 💡
I recently saw the play 'Hope' by Het Nieuwstedelijk (Dutch), which dealt with the theme of climate change. Highly recommended!
What does FutureproofedCities (FPC) mean for you, Kampenhout and Haviland? 💬
For Kampenhout, FutureproofedCities makes the follow-up of the entire climate plan so much easier and clearer. It is also more transparant for outsiders in terms of communication, because we always refer to our Futureproofed page for every action. We notice that once people are on this page, they also visit other parts of the website! Every time we share an action, we see a peak in visitors and clicks on other actions.
For Haviland, we see at a glance what all municipalities are doing in the regional view (= aggregated representation of the progress of all municipalities that use FPC). For example, we saw that there was a need for actions on sustainable mobility. That's why we decided to focus more on this in the coming years with, for example, a group purchase for electric bikes and subsidies for electric shared cars (in collaboration with Pajopower).
What does the FPC community mean for you? 👨👩👧👦
It's nice to know that if you don't know something, you can contact other fellow cities and municipalities (through the community of FPC users). Even if they don't know the answer right away either.
Because bragging is allowed here: what do you think other FPC users can learn from you? 👏
I am proud that all the actions and measures of all the different services of Kampenhout are included in one place in FutureproofededCities and that everything is up to date. This way, everyone (citizens, colleagues, stakeholders) can find all the information they need in no time.
What exciting actions are still to come in Kampenhout? 🚀
Kampenhout signs the climate commitment of the province and plans to sign the new Covenant of Mayors 2030.
In addition, we try to continue to implement as many actions as possible! For example, we are currently investigating the possibilities for sharing mobility (shared cars, bicycles, scooters, ...) and we will receive a subsidy for the replacement of street lighting by LED lighting. Together with Fluvius we will also draw up a lighting plan to light all streets in Kampenhout with LED by 2030!
A funny anecdote for the end? 😀
On the first FutureproofededCities Talk I found out that Willem Delbare (partner at Futureproofed and back-end Lead) and I had to be distant relatives. We suspect that our grandfathers are cousins!
Thank you for your time and enthusiasm Elke! We wish you good luck in the coming months with the shaping of your new climate plan.
FutureproofedCities allows all municipal services to work together on a single online tool to carry out more climate actions and communicate them to their citizens.
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