Welcome to IEMEA - the Institute for Ecomunicipality Education & Assistance. Our purpose is to provide support for emerging ecomunicipalities and those communities interested in a systematic, comprehensive approach for changing to sustainable practices. The ecomunicipality approach is a highly effective sustainable community planning approach.
What is an ecomunicipality? It is a local government – a municipal or county government – that has officially adopted a particular set of sustainability principles and has committed to a systematic, participatory approach for implementing them. The first ecomunicipalities were developed in Sweden, beginning in the 1980s. The work of the early ecomunicipalities became the model for Agenda 21, the Guide for Local Sustainable Development that emerged from the 1992 Rio Summit – the U.N. World Conference on Sustainable Development. As of 2010, there were 79 ecomunicipalities in Sweden, constituting almost 30 percent of all municipalities in that country.