iEMEA - Institute for Eco-Municipality Education and Assistance
Take charge of your community's future!
iEMEA - Institute for Eco-Municipality Education and Assistance
Take charge of your community's future!
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.
Torbjörn Lahti and Sarah James, IEMEA's founders, and advisors, are co-authors of the award-winning book The Natural Step for Communities: How Cities & Towns Can Change to Sustainable Practices (New Society Publishers, 2004.) Torbjörn Lahti, planner and economist, is the founder of the Swedish eco-municipality movement, and has worked with over 100 municipalities in providing ecomunicipality education and assistance. Sarah James, city and town planner, and co-author of the American Planning Association’s Planning for Sustainability Policy Guide (April, 2000), has worked with U.S. municipalities for over fifteen years in a bottom-up participatory planning approach closely resembling that of the Swedish ecomunicipalities. They offer a combined 50 years of hands-on experience in working with local government to bring about successful community change.
Sign up to hear from us.
Copyright © 2020 IEMEA - Institute for Eco-Municipality Education and Assistance - All Rights Reserved.
Powered by GoDaddy