BEACON Virtual Workshop on Nature-based Solutions
On 3-4 June, the BEACON project brought together more than 50 representatives from 24 municipalities and 6 countries in a two-day virtual workshop to discuss strategies to tackle climate change in their communities with the help of Nature-based Solutions. Originally planned as a personal exchange in the city of Zamość (Poland), the workshop was conducted completely online.
Andrzej Wnuk, Mayor of the workshop’s hosting city Zamość, regretted that the workshop participants could not meet in person in Zamość but invited everyone on a virtual city tour. The tour introduced the municipality’s initiatives aimed at protecting nature and mitigating climate change. You can watch the video of the virtual tour of Zamość here.
The participants engaged in a moderated dialog in which they presented inspiring case studies about different local solutions to climate-related challenges. The projects presented ranged from green roofs in Bydgoszcz, to the renaturation of rivers in Bottrop, to reforestation in Ansião or the climate-friendly use of peatlands in Greifswald, and many more. In addition to the cases presented by BEACON municipalities, participants had the opportunity to become acquainted with other interesting urban, nature-based solution projects, which were presented in a virtual gallery that was collectively created by the workshop participants.
Despite the fact that this was the first time that the larger BEACON community collaborated virtually on such large scale, the organising team is happy to say that the exchange was fruitful and they received great feedback. Key to the successful implementation were a detailed facilitation plan; a clear division of roles and responsibilities within the team for moderation and technical facilitation; and an interesting mix of workshop formats and online tools (e.g. presentations, videos, parallel breakout discussions and tools such as Zoom, Padlet, Mentimeter and Mindmeister to name a few). For more information about how this workshop was conducted online, tune into the EUKI Academy webseminar on 1 June at 15:00 CEST.
