Final GREEN-WIN Conference
On 13-14 March 2018 , partners of the Green-win project met stakeholders from around the world at Casa Convalescència of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain) for the final conference of the project on Actions for climate: Narratives, win-win solutions and climate finance. The goal of the conference was to present and share insights on win-win solutions, new business models and policy strategies which delivering multiple gains to users or providers in terms of economic, climate and sustainability benefits. Examples and the assessment of the conditions, as well as of the constrain for the success of win-win solutions, green business models were assessed.
The conference participants also dealt with the challenges for climate finance, new requirements and opportunities for macro-economic modelling addressing green growth and the emergence of climate financing networks. The next steps for research and action to advance beyond the GREEN-WIN project and experiment with win-win solutions were also laid out. A total of 2 speakers, 11 panelists, 14 oral presentations and 16 posters joined an active audience of more than 50 participants from more than 30 institutions from around the world. Talks included among others, the role of narratives in transforming societies, by Sander van der Leeuw (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italy) and climate finance by Stefano Battiston (University of Zürich, Switzerland). The first part of the conference was devoted to review the project overarching narratives for climate action through real-world practical applications: this included key lessons learned from the various GREEN-WIN Work Packages on climate finance governance, macroeconomics, green business models for local transformations, coastal flood risk management, transformation in urban systems and energy poverty eradication and resilient livelihoods. This led to discussions about the competing narratives (finance, sustainable development goals and business narratives) and the key role of sustainability narratives and visions in transforming the economy.
The conference looked at several win-win solutions brought by Conference participants from around the world at local level, which were presented by means of a poster session. From the presentations and discussions, several questions and comments emerged from the participants: Who and where are the losers? And how to compensate them or address their needs? How to foster the emergence of private companies to incorporate sustainable development objectives? And one of the most repeated question was : How to scale-up successful experiences and win-win solutions?
The second day of the conference focused on climate financing and financing networks with special attention paid to the decisive role that new intermediate agents can play in linking global funds with local initiatives and new forms of business models and SMEs to support sustainability transformations
A very engaged audience allowed tosharpen our understanding on the opportunities and how to overcome barriers to green businesses and win-win solutions around the world. A recurrent question from the audience was ‘how to upscale win-win solutions’, and create transformative synergies and ‘win-win alliances’ between local to national and global scales.
The GREEN-WIN policy briefs were distributed among all the participants presented at the conference: https://www.green-win-project.
Based on the insights gained during this conference and throughout the project, the GreenWin team are now write a Special Issue for the scientific journal Climatic Change (IF=3.5) bringing all the Work Packages work and some additional insights on how to articulate win-win solutions and support green business models and finance in one single volume.
Find the conference agenda here.
Find abstracts of parallel sessions and plenary for Day 2 of the conference here.