The municipality of Loulé was awarded the ODSlocal prize, in the category "Municipal Practices" for sustainable development goals, through the project "Loulé Design Lab", within the scope of the ODSlocal Conference of 2021, which took place last Wednesday, 24 November, at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon.
According to the Câmara de Loulé, this award distinguishes «the best sets of good practices with a relevant impact on achieving the goals of one or more sustainable development goals at the level of local projects, with the Loulé Design Lab project having been distinguished among the 287 good practices embedded in the ODSlocal platform'. The municipality was represented at this session by its president, Vítor Aleixo.
The concern with sustainability is transversal in the field of action of this creative incubator, which is «one of the pillars of Loulé Criativo, both in the projects it hosts and in the actions and collaborations it mediates».
Loulé Design Lab has already promoted 12 courses in the field of design, sustainability, biodesign and materials, with around 300 participants.
The municipality recalls that Loulé Design Lab is «a project by the City Council that began in September 2017, with the aim of actively supporting ideas and projects in the field of design applied to local culture, relying on the synergy of a wide network of partners».
The main programmatic lines are the reception and incubation of creators in shared work spaces, shared workshops and exhibition hall, the promotion of research projects applied to local production, a laboratory for the creation and development of products, a network of partner workshops and a regular schedule with artistic residencies, workshops, conferences and exhibitions.
In this conference dedicated to sustainability, the municipality of Loulé was also distinguished, among the more than 60 municipalities present on the platform, with the attribution of the ODSlocal Seal, in the category of municipal dynamics, as «the result of its exemplary performance in the benchmark indicators included in this portal ».
The ODSlocal platform was publicly launched on November 11, 2020 and it is a portal online dynamic, technologically based, which allows you to visualize and monitor the progress and contributions of each municipality in relation to the fulfillment of the goals of the various sustainable development goals.
Loulé was part of a restricted group of eight Portuguese municipalities invited to participate in the pilot phase of this project (Bragança, Cascais, Castelo de Vide, Coruche, Loulé, Ceia and Viana do Castelo), coordinated by the National Council for the Environment and Sustainable Development, in collaboration with OBSERVA of the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon, of the MARE of the Faculty of Science and Technology of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa and of the company 2ADAPT.
The SDGlocal aims to "stimulate a broad and open local sustainability movement, with strong multiplier effects, which highlights local actors and their initiatives and promotes the creation of an extensive community of change agents committed to this process", explains the municipality of Loulé.
In the post-pandemic context, where new challenges and demands are emerging, it seeks to “encourage good practices related above all to the eradication of poverty and the creation of a life with dignity and opportunities for all, within the limits of the planet”.
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