New European Bauhaus: achievements and future developments

The European Landscape Contractors Association (ELCA) welcomes, as an official friend, the initiatives of the New European Bauhaus and likes to contribute to the future development of its network and concrete actions. The focus of ELCA is on improving the quality of life by promoting a healthy built environment, nature-based solutions, water resilience, affordability and climate adaptation in urban development. We like to be involved by the New European Bauhaus as a relevant stakeholder in initiatives on the creation and maintenance of nature-based solutions, the upscaling of best practices and the endorsement of skilling and upskilling. ELCA seeks for partnership and facilitation by the New European Bauhaus on these topics.

Involve urban green professionals
ELCA represents national associations of landscape garden companies in 23 EU member states and has associate representation in Canada, Japan, Norway, Saudi-Arabia, Singapore, Switzerland, Türkiye and the United Kingdom. The landscape garden sector is in full transition. The era of greenery as decoration in the urban area, is over. The work in our sector focusses now on the design, creation and maintenance of green and nature-based solutions that add to a better climate, biodiversity and public health. This aligns to the challenges that the European Commission wants to address with for example the Nature Restoration Regulation, the Water Resilience Strategy, the Affordable Housing Plan and the Agenda for Cities. ELCA is closely involved in these topics and offers its expertise and network to enhance these EU-initiatives. Furthermore, ELCA facilitates the SoGreen Alliance (www.onthegreenmove.com) in which eight European associations of urban green professionals work together. This coalition is a strong movement for supporting the green transition at national and local level. We look at the New European Bauhaus as a platform where we can share our expertise, exchange on opportunities and initiate concrete actions. Looking at the future development, ELCA calls for a pro-active involvement as a green stakeholder by the New European Bauhaus in their initiatives and a closer alignment with our partners.

Facilitate innovation
The New European Bauhaus acts within a European context, but actions will have (a holistic) effect at local level. Our starting point is, that the ecosystem services of nature-based solutions are depending on local aims and circumstances. A green neighbourhood has different benefits on for example climate, health, social cohesion and biodiversity. There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’. ELCA pleads for the facilitation of local field-labs by the New European Bauhaus by offering a platform to bring initiatives and actors together, support these field-labs with accessible financial means and to disclose the outcomes for further innovation. Municipalities can play a leading role in initiating and/or coordinating these local field-labs. For ELCA it is also important that nature-based solutions are already taken into account at the beginning of the policy-, planning and design process and that the urban green professionals are already at the table in this phase to share their expertise on the best nature-based solution for the right spot and with the best maintenance for long term ecosystem benefits.

Facilitate skilling and upskilling
One of the biggest challenges for landscape garden companies is to organize their workforce. We need to attract motivated people for a career in landscape gardening, educate them for the necessary skills on nature-based solutions and to upskill them according to new innovations and developments. Vocational training and lifelong learning are the authority of national governments, but we as ELCA feel that we can enhance skilling and upskilling by learning from vocational training systems in the different European countries, sharing innovative curricula and EQF-training levels and offering cross boarder traineeships. That is why ELCA has taken up the ambition of establishing a European network of Centres of Vocational Excellence for landscape gardening. The ambition is described in the attached paper. We ask the New European Bauhaus, as it is also one of the EU-priorities, for alignment to and facilitation of sectorial initiatives on skilling and upskilling.          

ELCA wants, based on our feedback, to contribute to the further development of the New European Bauhaus. For more information about this call for evidence, contact ELCA Secretary-General Egbert Roozen by mail contact@elca.info or phone (+32) 468 35 11 91.