The cities in the Baltic Sea Region face similar challenges. Different cities concentrate on different sustainability issues and it is useful to share ideas and experiences with others by choosing a method that supports the aims of the project.

UBC has used for example peer reviews, municipal environmental audit and transfer of good practices as methods in its projects.

Sometimes suitable method is not available as such. The method may be a process of development which includes parts of other methods. UBC is also developing new methods to meet the needs of the cities.

Taking part in a UBC project will always contain the idea of evaluation, education and making suggestions for improvement on the way to more sustainable systems.

Following methods enable your municipality to use tried and tested practices and thus utilize available resources in the most cost efficient way. This website introduces the methods on a step-by-step basis and contains a sample of good practices from Baltic Sea Region cities to serve as source of inspiration.

Peer review is a method allowing a municipality to benefit from the experience of a “critical friend” who has already implemented a similar practice.

The purpose of a peer review is to benefit from the insight and objective view of another organization that has already been involved in a similar or comparable process that the city is wishing to be reviewed. A “peer” is thus a person or a group of persons with similar or deeper experience in similar role or context.

In practice, when a city wants to have its practices reviewed the review team is usually formed of people who work with similar tasks in their own municipalities. In some cases the peer might be a representative of a government agency or private business. Peer review is a practice that benefits both parties, since also the peers will get new information on the reviewed practice.

A peer review is conducted on the basis of preliminary data and a review visit. The peer review team takes advantage of its own experiences and analyses the performance of the host city. They share their findings with the host city and offer guidance and assistance for future actions.

Peer review has been used in the context of Baltic Sea Region cities for example in the sustainable urban transport planning (BUSTRIP-project) the implementation of Eco-management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) and sustainability strategies.

The peer review process can be divided into into pre-review, the actual review visit and feedback. These steps are covered here briefly, more detailed information can be found for example in EMAS peer review guidebook for municipalities in the European Union.

The first step in a peer review is to choose the appropriate peers for conducting the review. The host city should define the qualifications of the peers and objectives they wish to reach through peer review.

Selection of the peers is followed by the first phase of the actual review process, the pre-review. The purpose of this phase is to identify concerns, uncertainties and points requiring clarification. For this phase the review team must be provided with sufficient information on the reviewed process and local circumstances in the host city for the review team to analyse. The review team should work together at this point and discuss their findings. If needed, they can ask the host city to submit more material of clarifications.

The purpose of the review visit is to verify the claims made in the pre-review material and gather more detailed information. This is achieved though interviews and site visits.

The review team should decide beforehand who they wish to meet during the visit. In general interviews should be organized with the team that actually works with the reviewed practice, senior management as well as municipal politicians responsible for the subject area. A wide range of interviewees allows the review team to verify if the practice has sufficient support in managerial and political levels.

Site visits are an important component of the review visit because they enable the reviewers to check in practice the claims in the pre-review material and interviews. The extent of site visits depends entirely on the reviewed practice; sometimes they can take place in the office environment, sometimes in the field.

After the review visit often contains a final workshop during which the review team concludes its findings, points areas requiring further action and discusses with host city representatives. Together, they identify actions the host municipality can take to improve their performance. Sometimes the host city might ask further help from their peers, such as material on the same practice in the peer municipalities.

The first round of the review can be followed by another one, aiming at verifying progress made after the first review. Appropriate review cycle should be determined on a case-by-case basis.

• Transfer of good practices - Introducing success stories to other cities
• Transfer of good practices means implementing a practice that has proved to be successful elsewhere.
• Transfer of good practices means using a successful practice from one city as an example for launching a similar practice in another municipality.

Good practice transfer is an effective method of promoting sustainable development because it saves the cities the trouble of “inventing the wheel again”. Municipalities battle usually with some similar sustainability challenges and adopting a practice that has produced good results in another municipality is a cost effective way to initiate new projects.

The good practices have also been tested before and possible difficulties have been detected. In order to reach the best results, cities often have to concentrate on different aspects of sustainable development. Other municipalities can then adopt practices from cities that have a particularly good track record in certain issues.

These guidelines for good practice transfer are meant to serve as a facilitating tool for those municipalities that wish to implement a practice from another city in their own city setting. We have titled the method the step-by-step approach which includes four consecutive phases. All phases are supported by guidance forms that can be used as a tool in the transfer process.

Cities that wish to engage in good practice transfer should start the process by creating plans for a detailed study visit to the city with the existing good practice. The study visit is an effective way to gather information.

Planning for the study visit has to be undertaken carefully to ensure a productive visit. Dates of the visit should be fixed well in advance so that timing suitable for all parties can be found. Remember to serve some time for other formalities related to the actual trip, such as possible visa arrangements and hotel bookings.

Contents wise it should be considered who would take part in the study visit and what are the expectations to gain from it. The persons participating in the visit should be key persons in the municipality and have adequate knowledge on the subject matter. Expectations for the study visit should be made explicit in a written form and discussed over with the hosts in advance to ensure that the goals are matching.

The purpose of the study visit is to gather detailed information on the existing good practice. This information will later serve as a basis for a feasibility study. Necessary equipment, such as camera, for the documentation are needed in order to record all relevant information.

Aspects to pay attention to during the study visit are details of the itself, similarities and differences between the two municipalities, the defining factors behind the success of the existing practice and possible difficulties the host city has encountered. Inquiries about financial and administrative resources allocated for the project as well as technical matters and legislative requirements are necessary. Naturally, the benefits of the practice for stakeholders and local environment should be considered.

After the study visit the next step is to use the collected information in conducting a feasibility study. This means analyzing in detail the existing good practice and factors that have led to its success as well as the local environment and preconditions for transferring the practice successfully.

In practice the feasibility study can be divided into two parts: a description of the existing practice and circumstances in the host city and an analysis of the situation in own municipality and the possibilities to implement the practice.

Conditions in own municipality are mirrored against the information from the host city. The existing resources – financial, administrative and legislative – need to be considered from the point of view of implementing the practice. Conduct also analyses on stakeholders and expected environmental impacts of the practice. SWOT-analysis can be used as a tool at this stage of the good practice transfer.

Adapting the good practice in another city means creating a concrete project plan with set objectives and ways to monitor them.

The project planning process starts with a description of the current situation and the problems in need to be solved with the good practice. Accordingly, the project plan sets the overall goals of the project as well as more detailed sub-goals and states the ways of evaluation and monitoring.

The project planning also requires a detailed description of the practice and risk assessment. Practical aspects of project planning include acquiring the financial resources for the project, developing a budget, formulating a viable time-schedule and finding and nominating suitable project partners and steering group.

Municipal environmental audit is an environmental management tool designed especially for Baltic Cities.

Municipal environmental audit (MEA) is a tool the UBC Environment and Agenda 21 Secretariat developed to meet the needs of UBC member cities concerning environmental management. Many cities considered ISO and EMAS methods too heavy and expensive for their and hoped for a lighter version of an environmental audit.

MEA is meant to help cities to analyse the status of their environment and the quality of their environmental management. It enables cities to identify their environmental strengths and weaknesses and thus facilitates the process of developing a solid environmental strategy for the future.

MEA can also serve as an inspiration for investments and development projects and help in directing limited resources in the most productive targets.

In practice municipal environmental audit is carried out in co-operation between local and external experts of environmental auditing. They gather and analyze the relevant information and submit a report on their findings. In the following we present different stages of MEA, more detailed information is available in publications “A brief introduction to MEA” and “MEA workbook”.

Usually MEA is conducted by external experts from a twin city and the process starts with identifying a suitable twin city. Information on the audit should be disseminated to municipal officials and public. Other things to consider are the targeting of the audit, choosing the audit team and planning a time-schedule for the audit.

The target of the audit can be divided into environmental review covering the current state of the local environment and review of environmental performance covering environmental policy and administrative structures of the city. Members of the audit team should be familiar with the laws, regulations and permits as well as municipal policies and procedures applicable to municipal environmental issues.

Some of the relevant data is often readily available in municipal reports on the state of the environment that most municipalities compile every year. This material is particularly useful for conducting the environmental review.

Review of environmental performance requires a very different approach. The data do not always exist and it has to be acquired mostly through interviews. This means making contact with the operating units in order to obtain insight into concerning subject areas detected in the environmental review.

When the data has been collected it has to be analysed to expose the strenghts and weaknesses of the environmental management. The analysis should also pay special attention to the reliability of environmental monitoring systems. At this stage of the audit each auditor analyses the material collected from his or her own area of expertice. The results are then compiled into an overall report on the environmental performance of the municipality.

First the audit team prepares a draft report as soon after the audit as possible. This report is commented by the city officials. The audit team then considers if some of the comments are incorporated into the final audit report. The audit report should be clearly state possible shortcomings and contain initiation of corrective actions.

All the findings, suggestions and conclusions from the audit should be published so that both municipal governing bodies and administration and the public are able to familiarize themselves with the results.

After the reporting phase the municipality should produce a statement whose main purpose is to introduce the state of local environment to the public. The statement briefly covers the basis and principles of the audit as well as its main findings.

The last phase of MEA is validation, which means getting the audit evaluated by an external environment organization. This is to ensure that the audit complies with requirements of MEA and adequately covers the relevant issues. An audit cycle should also be set, for most municipalities 3-5 years might be suitable.