2025 Award "Best Practice in Citizen Participation"

The Environmental Promotion and Education Program aimed to involve different actors from civil society and the state to raise awareness among citizens about environmental issues, with the goal of creating an individual and collective cultural change in the city of Santa Fe de la Vera Cruz. The program helped define the objectives of municipal management regarding the importance of environmental care, providing concrete information to participants. Collaboration with city institutions was and remains fundamental in shaping state policies and gaining their support. This is why we sought to engage with this challenge and managed to invite 150 institutions to work on topics such as solid waste management, circular economy, responsible pet ownership, environment, and biodiversity.

In this regard, we successfully implemented waste separation throughout the municipal building, which is visited daily by around 800 municipal employees, distributing separate bins on each floor of the building. With proper traceability, the recyclable waste collected is sent to the Dignity and Healthy Life Civil Association, an institution working in the Environmental Complex of the City of Santa Fe, where recyclable waste is sorted.

We understand that environmental education is the channel to generate the cultural change we long for. This is why it is essential for public officials to understand the cross-cutting nature of environmental issues in the design, planning, and implementation of public policies, contributing from the state management to building an environmentally sustainable city. This is why we adopted Provincial Law No. 14.178, regulated by Ordinance No. 12.955, known as the "Yolanda Law," which establishes the need for comprehensive environmental training with a focus on sustainable development, particularly climate change, for public servants.

For more information: https://santafeciudad.gov.ar/cursos-y-capacitaciones/ (External link)