France
Orléans Métropole
Since 2019
In Orléans, citizens, experts, and politicians are working together at metropolitan level to advance climate transition in an innovative form of public engagement that aims for a new type of "social contract" around climate action. These efforts took shape as Assises de la transition écologique, or forums for ecological transition.
The primary ambition of the Assises model is to accelerate the ecological transition to promote a durable, dynamic and resilient metropolitan area. Its democratic method revolves around mobilizing a diverse range of actors and generating ideas for practical solutions that can spur an ecological transition. The Assises in this sense are intended to provide a space for the co-creation and co-production of ideas that can inspire politicians in the Orleans Métropole.
The Assises initiative has set itself ambitious goals and has already planned several further phases. The administration will create and support a metropolitan network of citizen champions dedicated to promoting a robust ecological transition and citizen participation. A network of elected officials and civil servants will be launched focusing on climate transition issues. Local officials also aim to create a transition school to train civil servants working in the Orléans metropolis on systemic change, climate and transition issues, public cooperation and citizen mobilization.
A series of actors met in thematic working groups with the participants of the twenty-two municipalities of the metropolis of Orleans. Each of the nine thematic working groups is led by a mixed group consisting of an elected representative of the metropolitan area, an official with technical expertise on the subject and a representative of civil society. Topics under discussion include sustainable food and agriculture, renewable energy, biodiversity, sustainable cities, waste reduction and circular economy, water resources and ecosystems, energy innovation, mobility and flood risks.
Citizens and groups can choose on their own initiative to join the Assises and choose their favorite thematic areas or events. A broad spectrum of activities was organized, including expert talks, co-design workshops and training courses, to ensure the involvement of a wide range of people and groups. Diversified representation of local councils in the twenty-two municipalities of Orléans Métropole was considered a key requirement; That said, the need to move the entire process online due to the coronavirus pandemic has made diversity more difficult to achieve, given some communities' less access to digital tools.
Orléans Métropole is composed of 22 municipalities, the biggest of which is Orléans. In 2016, Orléans Métropole had 282 828 inhabitants. The Metropole area is around 300km² and the Loire river flows through it. Becoming a positive energy territory by 2050 is the ambition of the metropole, which adopted its Sustainable Energy Climate Action Plan in November 2019.
The metropole affirms its commitment to reduce its vulnerability to climate change. This action plan covers a large portfolio of projects including energy savings in buildings, energy efficiency, bio-based materials, renewable energies development, mobility and more resilient and sustainable urbanism.
The Orleans Métropole experience highlights a vital innovation that goes beyond the standard climate assembly model, namely the way in which elected officials and civil servants have been offered training on climate transition and democratic participation, given the push for direct and continuous contact with citizens. This shows that there are ways to bridge the often observed gap between participation and representative democracy. As elected officials develop expertise in citizen engagement, co-design and co-creation methodologies, they are honing their skills and building long-term infrastructure. Such signs of progress reinforce the idea that engaging with movements, civil society actors and citizens on these issues is worthwhile, making a participatory approach more the norm than an outlier.
Assise's model of democratic engagement was rooted in specific factors of the Orleans Métropole. Changes in electoral political realignments have presented opportunistic overtures. Local elections in June 2020 (followed by indirect metropolitan elections the following month) brought government officials to office who share an ambition to make political talks on the green transition more participatory. This momentum has crystallized in the creation of a steering group that is representative in terms of political parties and includes civil servants from several local councils.
The Assises process was based on other opportunities and resources available in this location. These included a fully functional digital platform of the city of Orléans to enhance active public participation (Partecipons), a platform that had already been successfully used for the participatory budget of the city and various other public consultations. The Assises process also tapped into a growing proliferation of climate-focused social movements and civil society organizations particularly in Orléans. French climate-focused NGO Alternatiba Orléans and its local chapters, for example, have published a visual explanation that evaluates each candidate's climate-related commitments and ranks each party's agenda accordingly.
Despite the positive progress made by the Orleans Métropole, this experience also revealed challenges that still need to be overcome. One problem is that, while formal processes can be put in place, constructive forums driven by participation require a deeper shift in work cultures at many different levels of government and more active attitudes towards political responsibility. These changes take time to materialize.
Another challenge for climate-related governance issues is how to coordinate citizen involvement at different levels. Generally, citizens are concerned about the living conditions in their immediate neighborhoods. Since many responsibilities formerly within the remit of local councils have been taken over by metropolitan agencies in France, citizens often do not know who does what or who is responsible for what.
Although municipal governance creates opportunities for a strategic approach to climate transition, issues of legitimacy have also been raised, as members of metropolitan councils in France are not directly elected by citizens. This shortcoming was highlighted in a Manifesto article recently published by a French institute of professionals focused on citizen participation. Metropolitan areas are one step away from citizen involvement and so far most of the relevant processes in the Orleans Metropole have been led by municipal political elites and public officials. That same French institution noted a gap in local democratic politics between participatory debate within local councils and decision-making at the metropolitan level. This is because the responsibility for climate action rests with the metropolitan authorities, while those for citizen participation rest with the individual municipalities. This situation shows the importance of embedding democratic engagement at the levels where key climate-related policies actually occur. More synchronized approaches are needed to ensure that climate policymaking has a democratic bent from the start.
Compared to standard climate assemblies, the Orléans Métropole model offers political elites a more active role at all stages of the process. Its unique and mixed composition involves citizens, civic activists, academics and economic actors along with heavily engaged public officials and elected officials. It is a more solution-oriented approach, so working groups are spaces for action rather than discussion, a forum where citizens and other actors can help implement agreed solutions. The Assises are generally built around a subject in which conflicts and a diversity of opinions are evident. The process begins by trying to build a shared understanding of the problem at hand, recognize the diversity of opinions and identify shared benefits and common ground for action.
Sources
Metropolis web page
Web page of the initiative
Twitter profile of the Metropolis
YouTube profile of the Municipality
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