CONVERGE Workshop in Gödöllő

In the frame of the CONVERGE project, an international (English language) workshop ("Equity within Limits") was held on June 27th, 2012 in Gödöllő's Cultural Centre (Művészetek Háza), co-organised by GreenDependent Institute and Szent István University. Including the CONVERGE project partners, approximately 60 people attended from all walks of life - academics and researchers, university students, leaders and representatives of community-based initiatives and even interested members of the general public.

The workshop Programme

Details of the workshop programme are downloadable here

The audio recordings of the event can be downloaded here

Morning

Opening the event

The event was opened by Dr. György Gémesi, Mayor of Gödöllő. Interpretation was provided by Réka Sáfrány.

Introductory Presentations

1) The first presentation - a personal introduction to the CONVERGE project - was given by Ian Roderick (Director of Schumacher Institute, Co-founder of The Converging World Charity, UK). A copy of the presentation can be downloaded by clicking on this link.

2) The presentation which followed ('Setting the Scene – Bio-physical limits and Human development') was given by Dr. Kristín Vala Ragnarsdóttir (Reykjavík University, Iceland, member of The Balaton Group). Vala gave an overview of the nature of planetary 'limits'.

3) The third presentation, about research undertaken about 'CONVERGE initiatives' (personal representatives of which attended the day's event), was provided by Edina Vadovics and Simon Milton (GreenDependent Institute).

Poster Presentation session

Representatives of sustainability (and other!) initiatives being studied by GreenDependent stood by their posters (made by GreenDependent as part of the CONVERGE project research) during this 45 minute session, giving conference attendants a chance to circulate and talk in person to the individuals who are engaged in managing the initiatives. Forms were given out for attendants to give feedback on different elements of the initiatives.

The posters can be viewed by clicking on the links below:

Below are some pictures of the poster session.

1) Charles Amirthan Christy from SCAD in Tamil Nadu, India presenting his poster.

2) Nagy Gábor from the Pilis local currency initiative

3) Kristóf Vadovics with Gödöllő's local climate club

4) István Kaszap (in center of picture) from The Bokor Foundation

5) Veronika Kiss (center of picture) from the Resource Cap Coalition (CEE Web for Biodiversity)

Summary and Conclusion

Edina Vadovics presented a short summary of GreenDependent's research connected to the initiatives presented in the poster session and closed the morning session for the lunch break.

Lunch

A delicious, locally sourced and mainly vegetarian lunch was provided by Solier.

Afternoon

Policy Panel

The afternoon was opened with a presentation by Bálint Balázs (Szent István University) on research conducted on CONVERGE-related policies (the picture below shows Bálint with roundtable participant Veronika Kiss, Programme Coordinator of the Resource Cap Coalition (CEEweb for Biodiversity).

Roundtable Panel Discussion

The next item was a roundtable discussion on the topic of 'Equity and Limits'. Participants included:

Dr. Sándor Fülöp, Deputy-Commissioner for Fundamental Rights, responsible for the protection of the interests of future generations
Dr. Benedek Jávor, MP, Chairman of Parliamentary Committee for Sustainable Development
Veronika Kiss, Programme Coordinator, Resource Cap Coalition, CEEweb for Biodiversity
Dr. László Pintér – Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy, Central European University and Senior Fellow, International Institute for Sustainable Development
Dr. Deborah S. Rogers - PhD, Director, IfE (Initiative for Equality), Affiliated Researcher, IRiSS (Stanford University Institute for Research in the Social Sciences)

1) The picture shows 4 of the 5 panelists: Dr. Sándor Fülöp, Dr. Benedek Jávor, Dr. Deborah S. Rogers and Dr. László Pintér, from left to right.

2) A full audience paying attention to the interesting speakers...

Counting the Carbon Footprint of the event

Edina Vadovics gave the penultimate presentation of the day by showing how the carbon footprint of the day's event had been calculated and how much money had been donated by participants to buy locally sourced fruit trees to offset the event.

1) Edina Vadovics presenting...

2) GreenDependent's Veronika Gáll collecting donations for offsetting during registration

Closing the event

An optimistic close was given to the workshop by Ian Roderick and Dr. Kristín Vala Ragnarsdóttir. The caterers, Solier, provided refreshments for the reception which followed. Many workshop participants stayed on to chat and network informally.

Audio files of the whole day's event are downloadable in sections here: