Day 7 (April 3) - Success!

 

We are starting on a journey.

We know what we are looking for,

but we don’t have a map.
When we get there, we will thrive
because we forged the path together.

 

“If you do something, do it together. To do it together, you have to have a plan. When you do it, do it for your grandchildren.” – Jan Vreeburg, Head of Strategy, Evides

Rotterdam succeeded in getting climate adaptation on the agenda and managed to start implementing climate adaptation projects, even without having a disaster. 10 years ago in the Netherlands, water was not mentioned in plans outside of the plans for the surface water management agency. But they shifted from working alone in silos to working together.  The first step was developing the first citywide water plan in 2010. This plan was developed jointly between the surface water agency and the City’s water engineers. For Water Plan 2.0, they added the City’s spatial planners to the team. It took some time for the engineers and designers to figure out how to work together but eventually it yielded integrated solutions and a mutual appreciation for what each field brought to the table. Today, water is mentioned in all 17+ plans that govern the future of the City.

Working together.  That's the secret sauce!

The most elegant solutions are so simple (even when they are not).

When we met with our counterparts in the City of Rotterdam, Evides and the Delft Water Board, we asked them how they built the successful partnerships needed to implement their cross-discipline and cross-sector climate adaptation work.   Here was their recipe:

1. Use an integrated team (bring in multiple disciplines, perspectives, experts).
2. Acknowledge that you need something different (i.e. you can’t keep doing the same thing and expect a different outcome)
3. Align to shared values.
4. Make room for creativity and innovation.
5. Accept that when you do something new, you may fail.
6. Pilot something, learn from your mistakes, then scale up.
7. Connect your work to your community and get political support.

Success!