Aalborg University Copenhagen th Semester: Sustainable Cities 4 semester Aalborg University Copenhagen A.C. Meyers Vænge 15 2450 København SV Project title: What makes a climate adaptation frontrunner? Summary: The increased flood experiences in Denmark have led to the The municipal transition towards demand of municipal climate adaptation plans. The thesis focuses successful climate adaptation on the municipalities' experiences with their climate adaptation plan and a frontrunner municipality's management of the climate Project period: adaptation transition through Loorbach's Transition Management Feb. 2nd 2015 – June 3rd 2015 theory. The goal of the thesis is to provide the Danish municipalities with a framework to use through the adaptation transition. Semester theme: The following research questions are formulated to clarify this: How Master’s Thesis well are the municipalities within the Capital Region of Denmark planning their actions in the climate adaptation plan; and how have the water utility, companies, citizens, and housing associations been mobilised and utilised through governance activities by a frontrunner municipality in the transition towards successful climate adaptation actions? Finally, what characterises a frontrunner municipality in relation to climate adaptation actions? Supervisor: Sanne Vammen Larsen A comparative evaluation analysis through ten indicators makes it possible to score the adaptation actions within the climate adaptation plan for the 29 municipalities within the Capital Region. Group members: Five frontrunner municipalities are found: Copenhagen, Brøndby, Frederiksberg, Vallensbæk and Gladsaxe. Simon Kolby Christensen A case study of Gladsaxe Municipality clarifies their frontrunner status. Gladsaxe and Nordvand water utility have had a very strong ____________________________ collaboration, which strengthen the transition. It is found that the climate adaptation group, which consists of employees from Michala Fels different departments in Gladsaxe Municipality and Nordvand, has ____________________________ led to an innovative, strong process of creating the transition vision, transition agenda (the climate adaptation plan) and transition paths (the actions within the plan). Furthermore, the municipality has focused on involving the citizens, companies etc., which has been vital for the frontrunner transition work. Gladsaxe has had an innovative process approach towards the three first clusters of the Number of copies: 5 Transition Management theory: strategic, tactical and operational, but needs to improve the reflexive cluster. Number of pages: 149 The characteristics of a frontrunner municipality are gathered in Appendix on CD nine goals, as a framework for other municipalities to adopt and adjust to their own climate adaptation transition situation. The nine goals are: 1. Giving direction to 2. Reframing rain as 3. Translating the future planning a resource vision into content 4. Building the agenda 5. Networking with 6. Innovate new other actors solutions 7. Develop 8. Involve and 9. Adjustment of transformational engage other actors the transition projects Copyright © 2015. This report and enclosed material may not be published without the written consent of the authors. Christensen S.K. & Fels M. - Master thesis 2015 - Sustainable Cities - Aalborg University CPH What makes a climate adaptation frontrunner? Summary in Danish De oplevede danske konsekvenser af klimaændringerne er flere oversvømmelser, grundet den øgede mængde ekstremnedbør og det stigende havniveau. Denne tendens har ført til kravet om udarbejdelsen af kommunale klimatilpasningsplaner. Det forhåndenværende speciale fokuserer på kommunernes erfaringer med deres klimatilpasningsplan samt en frontløber-kommunes håndtering af klimatilpasnings-transitionen. Loorbachs Transition Management teori benyttes til at forstå dette. Målet med specialet er at give de danske kommuner en ramme til at forstå og arbejde med gennem deres klimatilpasnings-transition. Følgende problemformulering er udarbejdet for at belyse ovenstående: Hvor godt planlægger kommunerne inden for Region Hovedstaden deres klimatilpasningshandlinger i klimatilpasningsplanen; og hvordan er forsyningsselskaber, virksomheder, borgere og boligforeninger blevet mobiliseret og udnyttet gennem 'governance activities' af en frontløber klimatilpasningskommune under deres transition? Slutteligt, hvad kendetegner en frontløber kommunes klimatilpasningshandlinger? En sammenlignende evalueringsanalyse gør det muligt at analysere de 29 kommuners klimatilpasningshandlinger inden for Region Hovedstadens klimatilpasningsplaner og tildele dem point efter, hvor godt de tager hensyn til ti opstillede indikatorer. Herudfra findes fem frontløber kommuner: København, Brøndby, Frederiksberg, Vallensbæk og Gladsaxe. Et nærmere casestudie af Gladsaxe Kommune præciserer, hvad der forårsager deres status som klimatilpasningsplansfrontløber. Casestudiet viser bl.a., at Gladsaxe og Nordvand har haft et meget stærk samarbejde gennem klimatilpasningsarbejdet, hvilket styrker transitionen. Det konstateres ydereligere, at klimatilpasningsgruppen, som består af medarbejdere fra forskellige afdelinger i Gladsaxe Kommune og Nordvand, har ført til en innovativ, stærk proces i forhold til at skabe transition vision, transition agenda (klimatilpasningsplanen) og transition paths (klimatilpasningsplanens handlinger). Desuden har det kommunale fokus på at inddrage borgerne, virksomhederne m.v. været afgørende for Gladsaxes frontløber klimatilpasning transition status. Gladsaxe har haft en innovativ procestilgang til de tre første faser af Transition Management: strategic, tactical og operational, men der er fortsat behov for at forbedre den reflexive fase. Kendetegnene for en frontløber klimatilpasningskommune er samlet i ni nedenstående mål, hvilke kan danne rammen for andre kommuners transition, de skal blot tilpasse målene til deres egen klimatilpasning transition situation. 1. Retningsgiv den fremtidige planlægning 5. Netværkssamarbejde med andre aktører 2. Se regn som en ressource 6. Udvikl nye innovative løsninger 3. Omsæt visionen til indhold i 7. Udvikl transformations projekter klimatilpasningsplanen 8. Aktør involvering og engagering 4. Opbyg agendaen 9. Justering af transitionen Christensen S.K. & Fels M. - Master thesis 2015 - Sustainable Cities - Aalborg University CPH What makes a climate adaptation frontrunner? Acknowledgements The last four months have been very interesting and insightful, and we will like to say thank you to everybody who has helped us gaining a deeper understanding of the challenges behind the Danish municipal climate adaptation transition. We will like to say a special thank you to the five people below, as they have put time aside for us to interview them. This data has been key data during the analysis and supports our final framework for other municipalities to follow: Kathrine Stefansen, Gladsaxe Municipality Lise Jangmark, Nordvand Annette Kolte-Olsen, Nordvand Dennis Schultz, Gladsaxe Housing Association (Gladsaxe Almennyttige Andelsboligforening) Elsebeth Dahl Pedersen, Novo Nordisk We will furthermore like to thank the 21 participating municipalities within the Capital Region, who kindly have participated in our survey concerning their experiences with the climate adaptation action plan. Lastly, we will like to acknowledge the debates and valuable inputs our supervisor, Sanne Vammen Larsen, has provided us with during the last four months. Christensen S.K. & Fels M. - Master thesis 2015 - Sustainable Cities - Aalborg University CPH What makes a climate adaptation frontrunner? Preface This thesis is written as the final master project on the master programme Sustainable Cities at Aalborg University Copenhagen, Denmark. The thesis has been developed during four months (February 2nd 2015 – June 3rd 2015). The focus of the thesis has been the Danish municipalities' experiences with their climate adaptation action plan and how a frontrunner municipality manage to become a frontrunner in this transition. The goal of the thesis is to provide the Danish municipalities with a framework to follow through the transition. The references are to be found in the end of the thesis, and they are listed after the Harvard system. (Anglia Ruskin University, 2015). Christensen S.K. & Fels M. - Master thesis 2015 - Sustainable Cities - Aalborg University CPH What makes a climate adaptation frontrunner? Table of content 1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................. 3 1.1 SETTING THE SCENE FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION ........................................................................................... 3 1.2 PROBLEM AREA .................................................................................................................................... 9 1.3 PROBLEM FORMULATION ...................................................................................................................... 12 2 THEORETICAL FRAME ....................................................................................................................... 13 2.1 TRANSITION MANAGEMENT AS THEORY ................................................................................................... 13 2.2 EXAMPLES ON HOW TRANSITION MANAGEMENT IS USED IN THE REAL WORLD................................................. 19 2.3 APPLYING TRANSITION MANAGEMENT TO THE THESIS ...............................................................................