Current Common Good Municipalities

More and more municipalities and cities are working for sustainable global development. Yet, few administrations have found a way to systematically assess and improve their own sustainability performance. The ECG model can offer new paths by offering easy principles and tools for cities and municipalities. 

Cities

  • In Barcelona, the district Horta-Guinardó compiled its first Common Good Balance Sheet in 2016, before it decided to also promote private companies, ten of which were certified in 2019.
  • In Stuttgart, Germany, two city-owned enterprises have completed Common Good Balance Sheets in 2018. The city itself has hired a staff person solely dedicated to implementing ECG and is subsidizing private businesses that draw up a Common Good Balance Sheet.
  • Mannheim is following with four companies.
  • Austria’s capital city of Vienna promotes private businesses in its Ökobusiness program and decided to certify a public company in 2020.
  • The City of Amsterdam included the ECG next to the Doughnut Economy and the B Corps in its Amsterdam Impact Action Program 2019-2022.
  • The City of Münster has decided to do a CGBS for all of its public companies.

Common Good Municipalities

  • The first Common Good Municipalities started in 2014 in Italy in Alto Adige (Laas, Mals, Latsch und Schlanders) and Spain (Miranda de Azán and Orendain). In the latter, the entire citizenship was asked whether it wished to go the way of the Common Good Municipality. The participation rate was 90 percent, of which 89.6 percent voted in favour.
  • In 2017, the first certified Common Good Municipalities in a German-speaking country are the towns of Mäder and Nenzing in Vorarlberg, in Austria.
  • In 2018 Kirchanschöring in Bavaria, Germany followed suit.
  • It was soon followed by three towns of Klixbüll, Breklum, and Bordelum in North Fresia.
  • In February 2019, the city council of Mertzig, Luxemburg unanimously voted to become the country’s first ECG Municipality.
  • In 2021, Eschlikon became the first Swiss municipality with a Common Good Balance Sheet.
  • The council alliance of the Greens, CDU, and Volt in Cologne, Germany, wants to popularize the Economy for the Common Good and encourage municipal and commercial companies to draw up a Common Good Balance.
  • In 2021, Santa Coloma de Querault in Catalonia has decided to become a Common Good Municipality. It adopted an Institutional Declaration on the 29th of  April, with the unanimous approval of all political forces, declaring the city’s adherence to ECG’s model and values. Upon seeing the progress achieved, El Bruc decided to become the second Common Good Municipality in the region on July 2022.

Common Good Regions

  • In Höxter, Germany, a first ECG foundation has initiated the process of becoming an entire Common Good Region, in which three cities (Steinheim, Brakel, Willebadessen) were certified as Common Good Cities and a dozen private firms have done the CGBS, amongst them a bank. In addition, the ECG model is taught and applied in the whole region of Höxter.
  • The region of Wilder Kaiser has drawn up an CGBS in 2019.
  • The Region of Burgenland (Austria) has certified its University of Applied Sciences.
  • The Region of Baden-Württemberg has ordered the CGBS for the state forest. 

National politics

International and national initiatives and legislation are evolving. Find out more about Political Impact and Initiatives.

Become a Common Good Municipality

A city can become a Common Good Municipality by passing a council resolution in support of ECG by creating a Common Good Balance Sheet. Additionally, a municipality can adopt four more approaches, as listed below. Municipalities can supplement and reinforce their activities with their own ideas and initiatives.

Create a Common Good Balance Sheet for administrative and economic departments in local authorities, and for city-owned businesses and organisations, then publish them. The steps involved are:

  1. Choose your evaluation method (individual or peer evaluated)
  2. Draw up your Common Good Report using a deliberate matrix and workbook (see below)
  3. Become a member
  4. Register your report on our plattform
  5. Publish your report and certificate

A separate matrix and workbook have been specially drawn up for use in creating a balance sheet for local or regional authorities:

The Common Good Balance Sheet results could have a beneficial impact on (EU) local funding and financial redistribution: if a municipality is doing its share for people and the environment, it should enjoy appropriate benefits compared to those that do less.

Invite all companies that are based and operating in the municipality to create their own Common Good Balance Sheets. This will highlight the pioneers and serve to promote their achievements. This could take the form of annual awards for ECG Companies, which would publicise their exceptional service to the community and provide a platform for meaningful discussions on socio-political principles, or favouring companies with a good Common Good Balance Sheet when awarding contracts or making purchases.

In some regions, consultants and auditors will be on hand to assist groups of pioneer organisations, from initial information about ECG to creating the first audited balance sheet. Municipalities could promote these moderated groups. The process for local companies integrates well with other processes, for example in a LA21 (Local Agenda 21) or regional development process.

Promote the creation of a local Common Good Index, a quality of life index, which looks at both the Common Good Product (national economy) and the Common Good Balance Sheet (companies). The index is made up of the 20 most important quality of life indicators identified in a referendum. Once an index is established, it could be reviewed once a year through polls. In contrast to the Common Good Product, which should at least be uniform throughout the EU, the Common Good Indices could vary from one municipality to another (although this is rather unlikely). The aim is not to have one municipality “better” than another, but to encourage them to take steps to improve the quality of life for their citizens. The performance of policy measures must be assessed according to this quality of life.

Enabling and promoting a local economic convention. Interested citizens use these conventions to determine the 20 most important rules to be applied to the economic process at local, federal and EU levels. They could meet every two months in order to:

  • get to know and present the framework
  • identify the ten to twenty issues to focus on
  • carry out research
  • fine tune the results
  • vote (using the systemic consensus method)
  • follow-up and advise on the next steps (e.g.invitation to other municipalities, calling for a nationwide or EU-wide convention).

The paper “Process Design for a Local Economic Convention” has been drawn up by the editorial team in the Association for the Promotion of Economy for the Common Good. The numerous local economic conventions will give impetus to a nationwide or EU-wide economic convention.

Join a Common Good Region of a province, district, quarter, or state, whose aim is to turn as many municipalities as possible into Common Good Municipalities, and to manage and promote the processes for organisations on a regional scale. A Common Good Region, together with Common Good Municipalities, can ask their respective federal states to become a Common Good State…

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