FairSHARE- Certification for inclusive public spaces

The need for more systematic equity work

There is a great need for equity tools to become more concrete and systematised in urban planning processes, and to have greater legitimacy in municipal planning. It has become clear that municipalities today lack tools that support them in concretizing and integrating perspectives of equity in their planning processes, especially in the work towards the global goals 5, 10 and 11. There is a great willingness to work with strategically with equity but the gap between intentions and realization runs deep. When municipalities work more norm-creatively and experiment with new methods in different parts of the planning process to address equity issues, it often happens in individual projects and with a focus on gender equality, which omits other dimensions of equality and equity. Additionally, the work takes place without creating systematics around the issues. The need and demand for concrete tools and systematics to evaluate and compare work with equity is great.

Our vision with a user-friendly certification system for equity is that it will be a tool to achieve national discrimination and accessibility legislation as well asthe 2030 Agenda. The certification system is based on perspectives promoting equity which will enables systematic work with all grounds for discrimination and a proactive work to promote human rights. In addition, a certification system may contribute to an increased understanding of the social, economic and ecological positive side benefits that arise in an inclusive and equal urban planning process.

The certification system

RISE is now testing a new solution in the form of a certification system together with Tengbom, the City of Helsingborg and the Raoul Wallenberg Institute. To meet the challenges and address the obstacles that in urban development processes make structured equity work difficult, our goal is to create an established and recognized system for independent certification of urban development processes with a focus on public places and buildings from a perspecive of equity and inclusion. 

The system is comprised of two parts

1. A  guidance document that will provide methods, techniques and approaches that shall ensure that the competence required to work with equity in urban planning.

2. A requirements document for equity work set requirements for the systematic work and control of the process. Requirements will be placed on goal definition, process control, competence requirements and goal fulfillment. The framework for this is taken from the basic systematics in the environmental management standard ISO 14001 and the innovation process from the Standard for Innovation, ISO 56002. This is combined with the framework for human rights and is linked to the municipal planning process.

The work takes place through a co-creative process where the need owners are active in the development of the various parts of the system. The requirements document is currently being tested in three urban development projects in Helsingborg, Ängelholm and Umeå.

The results will be presented in June 2021.