About the project
Local circuits as part of strategies for green transformation at the local level are characterized as needed to transform society to a low emission society and develop attractive communities where we can live, work and spend our leisure time, in a sustainable manner.
The Corona crisis has brought a greater attention to short travelled opportunities to secure the economic foundation for different types of businesses and also food security in crises.
The tourist industry for instance has had an extensive growth during the last years, and has become essential for employment in rural areas. Tourists from all over the world have visited Norway with the objective of experiencing clean nature. Their long distant travels have at the same polluted considerably. The conflicting interests between employment and environmental have always followed the tourist industry. The Corona crisis has brought a greater attention to short travelled opportunities to secure the economic foundation for different types of businesses, maintaining employment opportunities in the tourist industry and also food security in crises.
Nonetheless, it is important to notice that the local tourists have other expectations and demands than foreign tourists, both in terms the adventure they seek and the traveling rout they take. The tourist sector need to transform their concepts and marketing strategies, and cooperate with other relevant stakeholders to assure efficient, affordable, and sustainable solutions. If succeeding the employment-environment conflict might be resolved.
There is a need to both understand how municipalities can initiate strategies for local circuits, how they work with respect to their transformative potential and how they impact and benefit different social groups. This is the focus of the project.
Outcome
- An overview of municipalities who work to plan, implement and follow up local circuit strategies as with respect to tourism and food.
- Better knowledge about the economic, social and institutional barriers towards planning and implementing local circuits for sustainability transformation.
- This project will provide better knowledge about the effects local circuits may contribute to in sustainability transformation in different sectors.
Cooperation
This project is part of the FME center Include and is a collaboration between researchers at CICERO, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Insam and Centre for development end the environment at the University of Oslo..
Additional partners in this project are The Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities (KS),Tromsø municipality, Hurdal municipality, Oslo municipality, SPIRE and A-lab.
Duration
September 2020 - December 2023