Setubal 2015
Social & Urban concept-plan/program for Sustainable Living
research background & concept
"This executive summary recaps the proposals put forward by DAST (Design a Sustainable Tomorrow) to the Portuguese Ministry of Environment, as a result of a longtime cooperation and partnership"
Research
The enclosed DAST’s Setubal roadmap for a sustainable recovery details how a much more balanced, inclusive and creative growth can be delivered in this Portuguese coastal city.
Adequately located in the vicinity of Lisbon, with abundant natural resources (the Arrabida pristine forest surrounding the city), a deep sea port and a well-known university, but plagued with massive unemployment and structural budget deficit, Setubal offers a perfect testing ground for a new development model, focusing on people’s participation/empowerment, sustainable use of resources and much needed urban renovation.
concept
A consortium of international experts invited to discuss and debate Europe and Portugal future by Lisbon-based French entrepreneur and thinker Frederic Coustols, DAST is not an institution, neither a Non Governmental Organization (NGO). DAST sees itself more as a platform of concerned young and active individuals, willing to come up with alternative scenarios and ideas to overcome the present financial crisis, and help local populations to redesign their own future.
DAST’s Setubal roadmap, focusing on the “renaissance” of this coastal Portuguese city located 41 km south of Lisbon, intends to foster similar initiatives and discussion in other parts of the European Union. As the need to reinvent Europe and to reinvent our economic thinking has become urgent, DAST teams of experts are ready to move in to assist municipalities or regions willing to explore alternative and creative sustainable economic solutions based on people’s inclusiveness and a much better use of natural resources and common goods.
methodology & goals
"From Brussels to Setubal, fulfilling Europe’s promises of an inclusive and eco-friendly growth"
Frederic Coustols
Founder & Mentor of DaST Foundation
22.01.2014
Methodology
This DaST roadmap advocates an economic framework based on accurate statistic insight. Figures and numbers are mainly based on informations provided by the Setubal municipality, the Portuguese Ministry of Environment, ENI, Worldbank , Eurostats and CIA. Concrete proposals, such as urban renovation scheme, are the results of numerous field visits and discussions with locals and elected officials.
Based on this research, DaST experts strongly believe that Setubal has all the potential to be a social and economic laboratory in an EU Southern periphery plagued by unemployment, structural budget and debt problems. Delicate reforms, especially in the field of training research and natural resources use, will be obviously necessary to achieve the expected results and to make those economic shifts durable.
On a socio-economic angle, DaST considers essential to get the active participation of all citizens and local businesses / conglomerates which account for a good part of the region’s production output. This DaST roadmap, therefore, pleads for a strong inclusive process in which the private sector will be a crucial actor, with a 10 year timetable designed to help citizens and companies adapt to the new set of imperatives and objectives while creating added value for all of them.
A key to success is to convince all Setubal based local actors that this alternative strategy offers a unique chance of recovery.
Goals
DaST’s Setubal roadmap intends, as its acronym puts is, to design a «sustainable tomorrow». After numerous studies and examinations of Portuguese and European data, we are convinced that the economic model adopted by Portugal since its entry in the European Union has reached its limits and cannot produce the requested GDP growth.
DaST, consequently, pleads for investing massively in bringing Portugal to a balanced footprint, social inclusiveness, biodiversity’s support, research and industrial production with the aim of achieving a kind of «sufficiency economy».
In the case of Setubal, the following priorities shall be pursued by the national and local administration in a 10 year time frame:
- Reach a balanced footprint
- Test and set up all legal, tax and accounting principles, indexes, algorithms linked to an organic growth.
- Help creating a research center on sustainable technologies and social innovations
- Bring the city to full bloom (beauty, creativity, fun and wealth playing together)
expected results & conclusion
"With DaST, let us develop Portugal differently"
Expected results
With the legal technical and financial support of the European Union and taking into account the acceptance of a certain degree of autonomy/responsability of Setubal region by the Portuguese authorities, the results below can be achieved from now on until 2024 in terms of jobs creation, urban renovation and economic output:
- New jobs: 3000 up to 12000
- Organic food production: 460 euros/capita/year
- Decrease of gas import: 0,5tep/capita
- Decrease of CO2 emissions : 5,1t/capita
- Water/air cleaned
- 52% of energy needs of the city produced locally
- Full restoration of the historical city centre
- New accounting and tax system based on decreasing drastically the present entropy
- Increase the number of tourists visiting the City by 100.000
- City/State versus Citizens accounts balanced
Conclusion
Such a success, deemed to become a symbol of Europe’s renaissance after years of crisis and stagnation, can potentially produce a tremendous effect on people’s understanding of the European Union and on their aspiration to support the integration project. Have a look at the figures below to realize how modest the cost of such an operation will be:
- The EU and the State of Portugal have presently spent around 200billions Euros in Portugal, with the limited success we know;
- It could spend 126 Euros /capita/year in Setubal and creates the listed benefits here above.
This being done, a successful Setubal project will contribute greatly to the reduction of the structural deficiency of the Portuguese economy by decreasing on the long term the negative balance of the balance of payments on food and oil.
