Collaboration and partnerships are key to achieving sustainable goals. Partnerships contribute to addressing complex sustainability challenges across sectors and drive innovation. They enable merging of diverse perspectives, the exchange of ideas, burden-sharing, the co-creation of new standards, incentives, and legislation, as well as the achievement of results that individual parties would find harder to attain independently.
“Stronger together” was the pervasive idea at the traditional annual meeting of CER members, titled ‘The Power of Collaboration and Partnerships: Shaping the Future.’ Representatives from various economic sectors, the public administration, and organizations attended the event, with the highlight being a roundtable discussion, summing up that partnerships and collaborations are crucial for achieving sustainability and the green transition goals.
The Mayor of the City Municipality of Celje, Matija Kovač, strongly supports collaboration and believes that the cooperation of municipalities, businesses, academia, and science is an excellent way to achieve concrete sustainability solutions. He stated in his opening address, “I am convinced that together we can achieve more, so strategic partnerships are of paramount importance.”
Franci Pliberšek, the Director of Mik Celje, is embarking on a path of collaboration with the establishment of the Dr. Peter Novak Institute and the new MIK Development Center. The latter is dedicated to young businesses and startups, offering mentorship and modern robotized production support. “It’s about connecting entrepreneurship, scientists, and expertise to make a contribution to the green transition,” he added. He also sees opportunities in collaborating with stakeholders in the supply chain: “With suppliers, we continuously seek common solutions to reduce carbon footprint and improve indoor living environments.”
Matjaž Polak, the Director of SMC Knauf Insulation, also sees opportunities in stakeholder collaboration. They are proud of their demonstration and educational center for sustainable construction, the Knauf Insulation Experience Center. This building, with the highest quality standards and sustainability certificates, serves as a hub for connecting customers, employees, and suppliers. “In our center, we bring together various experts and stakeholders and share knowledge about sustainable construction,” explains Polak. Recently, they have been focusing on the well-being of employees and collaborating with over 1500 suppliers to achieve sustainability goals.
Danijel Vuk from Termo Shop says partnerships are crucial for counter-cyclical business operations. He believes that strong partnerships formed during times of economic growth will significantly help companies address challenges in less favorable circumstances. “First and foremost, one must be a good partner to their employees and customers, and only then can they be a good partner to other stakeholders in the process,” concluded Vuk.
Klemen Gostič, representing the Regional Development Agency of the Ljubljana Urban Region, RRA LUR, believes that collaboration with various stakeholders is fundamental to their core mission. He highlighted the need to strengthen international collaborations to enable Slovenia gain new experiences. By tracking global trends, RRA LUR aims to ensure that solutions in the Slovenian context are based on the latest global guidelines.
“This year’s floods have taught us that we need to change our thinking, stop blindly following certain trends, and start focusing on resilience. Whether it’s protection and rescue, construction methods, or energy diversification, we will need to be able to respond to various scenarios, and I see an opportunity for collaboration in this, as it is solely through collaboration the contemporary climate and environmental challenges of our time may be addressed,” concluded Mayor Matija Kovač.
The event was organized as part of the SmartMOVE project: Smart Solutions for Sustainable Mobility. We are proud that many participants chose the option of shared transportation, contributing together to reducing the carbon footprint of the event.
