Regional Hubs for Sustainability Strategies (RENN): Building Bridges for Agenda 2030 implementation in Germany
Description
In 2016 the German Council for Sustainable Development (RNE) initiated the Regional Hubs for Sustainability Strategies (RENNs): a new network of 20 actors – primarily from within civil society – from all 16 German Länder, divided into four hubs. Their objective was to advance implementation of the 2030 Agenda in Germany. Funded by the Federal Government, appointed by the German Länder, coordinated by RNE Office and independent in their project implementation, the RENNs can link actors in a unique manner across the various governance levels of the Federal State. The project’s current funding runs until the end of 2022.
When the 2030 Agenda was adopted in 2015 it gave fresh impetus to the sustainability movement – globally and particularly in Germany. This was not only because corresponding public funding programmes were again stepped up or even revised but also because it marked a development in the underlying substance. The 17 goals created for the first time a shared point of reference for putting sustainability into practice within the family (e.g. day-to-day purchases), at companies, in civil engagement and within societal and political participation. <br />
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Nevertheless, the German Council for Sustainable Development ascertained in 2016 that discussions and approaches to local SDG implementation were to be found primarily within sectoral responsibilities. In both politics and civil society, the gap between action on the environment, global development and, moreover, education was noticeable everywhere. Furthermore, the ever-increasing number of activities by the Federal Government, the German Länder and the municipalities were insufficiently dovetailed, which was at least as problematic. <br />
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For this reason, in 2016 the Council submitted a proposal to the German government concerning the establishment of four Regional Hubs for Sustainability Strategies (RENNs). The aim was for them to contribute towards improving the interlinking of activities regarding the SDGs across political echelons (horizontal and vertical integration). In the past, these activities often took place simultaneously and with no knowledge of one another. The fundamental idea was that establishing new communication channels and better interlinking would advance the concept of sustainability through the creation of an infrastructure for dialogue and offering greater freedom for concrete actions. In addition, with their regional and local roots, the RENNs were aiming to reach target groups in society who had previously been overlooked and had therefore been left behind in the desired sustainability change.<br />
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20 organisations were selected; they are organised in four regionally active hubs and together cover the whole of Germany. The coordination centre oversees the network as a whole; reports and feedback are submitted to the German Council for Sustainable Development (an advisory body of the Federal Government) at least once a year. This structure is an important unique feature of the RENN project – rooted locally, it is also dynamically involved in bottom-up and top-down processes which contribute towards achieving the SDGs. The RENNs set their own priorities. A wide section of the population is familiarised with the Agenda, which is also interpreted and acted on at local level. The network also addresses, onboards and links actors who did not previously engage in dialogue with one another sufficiently. This makes RENN exceptional.
The German Council for Sustainable Development established the RENN in 2016 after consultation with the German Länder. Upon parliamentary decision the Federal Government provides a total of 17 million euros to fund the RENNs until end 2022. The budget was mainly allocated on the basis of a four-way split. The budget allocated to each individual partner thus depends mainly on the number of partners, which varies from hub to hub. Only organisations and institutions with long experience of engaging on sustainable development were eligible to apply for the programme and thus add networking to their remit. Designing the contractual arrangements was challenging at first, as no comparable projects exist in Germany. As a result, each RENN has its own specific arrangements. The Federal Chancellery provides funds directly to the hubs, but tasked the RNE with the substantive management and coordination of the programme as a whole.
The RENNs started work at the end of 2016. Each hub decides for itself which issues and target groups it would like to focus on and which activities to carry out based on an annual working plan. The focal areas for 2019 are corporate sustainability (RENN.north), sustainable municipal development, sustainable regional development and education for sustainable development (RENN.central), sustainable consumption (RENN.south), and agricultural change/biodiversity, education for sustainable development at higher-education institutions, sustainable tourism, social justice and mobility (RENN.west).
The activities include
a) Awareness raising for SDGs and sustainability strategy
b) Conceptualising and holding numerous different and innovative sorts of events, both large and small
c) Working with and supporting external actors; conceptualising and implementing publications (mostly showcasing best practice examples)
At the end of each year, the RENNs write interim reports. The coordination centre checks on behalf of the Federal Chancellery whether these serve the general objective for which funding is provided.
Several times a year, reviewing and planning meetings between the four consortium leaders and the coordination centre team take place. Regular RENN-wide formats include, for instance, participating in the RNE annual conference and the National German Sustainability Award and promoting the German Sustainability Action Days, as part of which a large number of independent events are also organised. Since 2017 the RENNs have also been holding a central networking event in Berlin – the RENN.days – which is overseen by the coordination centre. It brings together some 200 sustainability pioneers and opinion shapers from throughout Germany. The delegates discuss various challenges posed by the implementation of the 2030 Agenda in, with and by Germany and show how these are being tackled at local and regional level. The RENN.days event gives impetus to new networks and partnerships and contributes to the professionalisation and dissemination of innovative best practice.
In addition, the consortium leaders and the coordination centre develop RENN-wide reports, e.g. in connection with the international peer review of the German Sustainable Development Strategy in 2017, the update of the German Sustainable Development Strategy in 2018 or, currently, the SDG summit in September 2019 in New York.
The RENN project was launched at the end of 2016 and will run until the end of 2022. Many of the planned measures have medium-term objectives, however we can see already that the concept of regional interlinking is bearing fruit. There is no overarching evaluation or monitoring mechanism for the many activities, several hundred events throughout Germany and dozens of publications, and cooperation with other networks makes it difficult to attribute success to RENN alone. We will therefore limit ourselves to listing RENN-wide achievements and challenges here:
Project Sustainability, a competition through which RNE had been recognising particularly effective sustainability engagements, has been regionalised very successfully. In 2018 450 clubs, initiatives, companies and/or private individuals submitted an entry in the hope of winning one of 40 €1,000 awards. This is twice as many applications as in the previous years. By talking to the organisers of the 2017 award-winning projects, we learnt that the commendation made it easier for them to secure further funding from external sources.
The annual German Sustainability Action Days have also benefited from the regionalisation. They are held from 30 May to 5 June each year as Germany’s contribution to the European Sustainable Development Week. With the aid of the RENNs, the number of activities was upped from approximately 1,800 in 2017 to over 2,500. This made Germany the number one in Europe in 2018.
A RENN-wide conference series established in 2017 – the RENN.days in Berlin – has also been received very well. Demand for places was much higher than expected in 2018: the event was booked out within three weeks. It is also acting as catalyser for other sustainability related networking events.
However, the network has also faced challenges – and it continues to do so. Meeting concerns of established associations and networks active in environmental/development/ESD fields that the RENNs would create structures which duplicated existing ones and competed with them with measures such as dialogue and joint events was – and remains – a time-consuming task for all 20 RENN partners and the coordination centre.
A further challenge is the diversity of expectations and demands vis-à-vis RENN in a number of regions. Smaller initiatives and the local branches of large associations would like practical assistance and support for their work, whereas directors of large established associations want RENN to become a more political actor. There are also differences in the Länder ministries’ expectations towards the network. The four RENNs serve these interests in various ways; they are free to choose their target groups and instruments. Viewed positively, this leads to a flexible and dynamic network. Conversely, there is disappointment among target groups who are offered concrete support in one region but not another.
(1) Project duration and funding
It takes time to establish a network. The partners need to settle into the new constellation, define joint aims, decide how to organise coordination processes and build trust among themselves and by other sustainability actors. The six-year duration is therefore crucial to the project’s success (as opposed to the standard three-year period).
Originally, the sum of 10 million euros was made available from the federal budget for the RENN project over a five-year period. It quickly became clear that expectations towards the project exceeded the resources which were actually available. With 2 million euros a year, very little is left for each partner in a network consisting of 20 organisations plus a coordination centre. Due to limited resources, some of the partner organisations’ project proposals and the RNE coordination centre’s ideas seemed to compete with one another for a while. This situation could only be defused in 2018 when additional funding totalling 7 million euros was secured.
(2) Sustainability is a top priority
The concept of the RNE and the fact it is funded by the Federal Chancellery allows it to focus equally on all dimensions of sustainability (unlike organisations supported by line ministries). At the same time, supplementary funds from line ministries would be welcome to further strengthen the work on specific topics.
(3) Involvement of the German Länder
Germany is a federal state. Many of the challenges presented by the 2030 Agenda can only be tackled by cooperation throughout the various governance levels. This is why the German Länder were involved in the selection process for the organisations to involve in RENN and are also embedded institutionally via a group of partners or a working group in the majority of RENNs. This makes coordination processes easier, generates important synergies and prevents duplication.
(4) Established actors
There was much more administrative work involved in setting up the RENNs than expected. A great deal of preliminary work had to be done before the first funds were released. Without experience of filing applications, existing administrative structures and human resources, it would have taken much longer to reach this stage. Furthermore, the actors involved in RENN are trusted within their existing networks, which often makes it easier to address reservations as there is a shared history. Conversely, established actors face the challenge of taking new approaches with new funding.
(5) Diverse partners
The diversity of the 20 network partners is both a challenge and a factor in RENN’s success. Before RENN was established, the actors involved approached the issue of sustainability from different angles; they came from the environmental, development and/or education area. This means that topics are sometimes prioritised differently and viewed from a range of perspectives. Agreeing on a joint approach and/or reaching decisions is therefore relatively time-consuming. At the same time, these internal discussions lead to outcomes which meet the demands of a diverse sustainability landscape.
Various external and internal factors play a role in this, including the following:
(1) External factors
When the 2030 Agenda was adopted, it gave fresh impetus to the sustainability movement, especially in Germany. Various government ministries expanded or set up public funding programmes. Alongside the political will to implement the SDGs, Germany’s good budgetary balance was crucial in enabling this. Whether the RENN network lasts beyond 2022 will depend in part on the extent to which both of these factors remain in place.
(2) Internal factors
The RENNs cannot influence the external parameters mentioned. However, they can make the project’s continuation more likely by means of concrete success stories. These must be clearly visible – and ideally tangible – for potential funding providers at national level and/or in the German Länder. Storytelling is crucial here. To achieve this, RENN must identify, occupy and fill gaps which currently exist in sustainability engagement. At the same time, its interplay with other sustainability actors must make it clear that a partnership-based approach to the SDGs can be facilitated/promoted – but not replaced – by networking.
Regardless of whether the networking structures endure beyond 2022 it seems safe to say that knowledge management will survive. Most of the 20 partner organisations were established actors in sustainability policy before the start of the project and will remain so when it ends. Experience, outcomes and method knowledge will remain embedded in both their institutional memory and the RNE Office and can be used in other contexts. Some of the partner organisations have also been able to use the RENN project funds to structure (or restructure) themselves and/or raise broader public awareness of themselves for the first time. This also gives them access to other funding, irrespective of the network’s future.
The RENNs will discuss the replicability of the model in other countries with international peers at the Open SDGclub.Berlin in early May. A special focus will be placed on success factors and obstacles. Based on this, the RENNs will present a brief report to the SDG summit in New York which shows a) how and to what extent such a network can contribute towards local implementation of the 2030 Agenda in practical terms, b) which resources are necessary and c) which other parameters need to be considered.
Funded by the government, appointed by the German Länder and independent in their project implementation, the RENNs can establish dialogue between actors across political echelons in a manner which is otherwise virtually impossible in a federal state. <br />
Their local and regional focus enables the RENNs to reach people who have previously been insufficiently well prepared for the desired sustainability transformation and invite them to become part of a joint movement. <br />
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RENN links civil-society and municipal activities which often took place simultaneously and with no knowledge of one another in the past.<br />
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The RENNs have demonstrated which factors are critical when establishing a new sustainability network: <br />
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(a) It takes time to create new structures: partners need to be prepared for this and the project’s duration should be correspondingly long<br />
(b) A network with so many partner organisations costs money<br />
(c) A project like RENN only works when all the partners invest a lot of time in trust-building <br />
measures and dialogue. Reliability is the key, both internally and externally <br />
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The network has faced major challenges, and it continues to do so. As a new player in the German sustainability movement, it has to recognise and fill a gap. We firmly believe we are on the right track.
www.renn-netzwerk.de
A project summary in English is already available at:
https://www.nachhaltigkeitsrat.de/en/projects/renn/
Article about the RENNs “From the New York Earth Summit to voluntary fire departments”
https://www.nachhaltigkeitsrat.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Almanac_20…
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Sabine Gerhardt, Project Manager