The response to climate change and adaptation initiatives often involves the implementation of environmental sustainability measures and initiatives.

“Loulé, year 2100. Diogo is a boy who loves the stories his mother, Dr Pardal, a scientist at the Loulé Adapta laboratory, tells him about Loulé in the old days: when there were four seasons, when you could go to the beach during the day and even ride a bike in the summer. Things that he unfortunately can’t do in the present as a result of climate change. One night, he and his cat Carapau stumble upon his mum’s secret invention, a time machine, and clumsily travel back in time (to the present day). There, the adventures begin that lead them to discover that the actions of each one of us in the present influence reality in the future and that it only depends on each one of us to help bring about change.” This is the motto of the children’s theatre play “CLIMAAT 100”, written and produced based on the reality of the municipality and which addresses and presents the climate vulnerabilities of the local territory, and through which the aim is to alert and inform, in a comical and light-hearted way, the 1st cycle students of the municipality’s schools about the current and projected climate reality and the need and urgency for climate action.

The theatre play “CLIMAAT 100” was also converted into a children’s book by Maria Adelaide Fonseca, which was accompanied by an Activity Booklet aimed at teachers and educators. Both publications are handed out annually at the start of the school year to 1st year students in the Loulé municipality.

Using technology as a tool in the service of sustainability, valuing the actions of citizens that contribute to making Loulé a carbon-neutral city, are the main objectives of the protocol signed between the municipality of Loulé and CEIIA - Centre for Engineering and Development. The creation of a Local Voluntary Carbon Market is one of the projects that this partnership will embody, but it is also intended to sow the seeds for climate justice in this municipality to become a reality. The co-operation between the two entities is centred on reducing carbon emissions from mobility, integrating Loulé into the Carbon Neutral Cities Network, quantifying the carbon stock and the potential for sequestration by plant biomass, but also on the intention to integrate transversal climate justice measures into municipal management.

The creation and implementation of the Loulé Municipal Observatory for the Environment and Territory (OMAT Loulé) resulted from the need to integrate and make available information on the various performance indicators and qualified information resulting from the various services of the municipality, as well as other sources of dispersed information, facilitating informed decision-making, as well as the need for greater articulation between public authorities, entities and agencies and local private companies. With this in mind, Loulé Town Council has integrated the design and development of the Municipal Observatory into the “Simplex - Central Algarve Municipalities” application to PO Algarve Notice ALG-50-2016-04.

Loulé’s OMAT consists of a digital platform with various domains (environment, territory, society and economy) that compiles and makes available information on various indicators in the areas of municipal action, providing, to date, 195 open indicators and 85 for internal use by municipal services.

Environmental Education (EE) and Education for Sustainable Development have been strategic focuses for the municipality of Loulé for around 30 years, namely through the promotion of EE facilities (Loulé Environmental Centre, Pena Environmental Centre and Quarteira Blue Centre), the promotion and promotion of various EE projects and environmental training and awareness-raising activities. Through these environmental education centres, the municipality has sought to contribute to the formation of a more environmentally aware and informed community (especially children and young people) and to the adoption of more sustainable habits, addressing current environmental issues and publicising the environmental reality of the municipality of Loulé and the region, with the aim of promoting and appealing to the conservation of natural and environmental resources. This dynamic in the field of environmental education is characterised by local, regional and national cooperation, through the establishment of partnerships with other entities (such as the Almargem Association, APA, GEOTA, RIAS and ICNF) with a view to sharing knowledge and enriching some of its actions.

The Loulé Environmental Centre (located in the Municipal Park, in Loulé) and the Pena Environmental Centre (located in the village of Pena, in the

parish of Salir) are run in partnership with the Almargem Association, under the protocol established between the two entities in 1992. As privileged places for environmental awareness and education, these facilities allow for regular activities with schools or organised groups (by prior appointment) and the development of educational projects of an environmental nature throughout the school year.

Located on the beach, the Quarteira Blue Centre is an information and environmental awareness structure in support of the Blue Flag Programme, with activities aimed at bathers and tourists. Every day during the bathing season, between 12 noon and 7pm, workshops are organised for young people, as well as various activities to reuse and recycle materials. In addition to general information, all citizens will be able to collaborate and take part in numerous beach games linked to environmental themes and strengthen contact with nature through enriching and stimulating experiences, with the aim of instilling a sense of preservation.

May 14 is International Climate Day, an event that the municipality of Loulé marks every year by organising Climate Week, which is made up of a diverse range of activities aimed at different target audiences, including seminars, workshops, ateliers and recreational and educational activities.

The Loulé Urban Vegetable Gardens project began in 2012 and aimed to provide the municipality with a facility that emphasises the importance of the relationship between man and the earth as a form of balance, interaction and integration with the social and environmental environment. Currently with 41 plots, the Urban Vegetable Gardens occupy a public space that was tending to deteriorate, having contributed to its requalification, as well as to harnessing and utilising the water from the Bicas Velhas, a resource that used to be wasted. It has contributed to the integration of the community into the social and environmental contexts, justifying, due to its social and community relevance, consistent support and encouragement for the promotion of health and quality of life, by changing behaviour, which translates into healthy lifestyle habits, favouring contact with nature and motivating the introduction of good environmental practices. It also has a strong educational component, allowing training sessions to be held in its own space on organic farming techniques, public space maintenance, community work, composting and environmental promotion. In the social field, there is also the collaboration of users in channelling the surpluses produced to charitable institutions.

Use of the Loulé Urban Vegetable Gardens is completely free of charge, but requires compliance with the rules set out in the respective regulations, correct use of the resources provided and contributing to healthy coexistence between users, as well as compliance with sustainable and healthy farming techniques.

Loulé Town Council joined the Zero Waste Movement on 21 November 2014 by formalising a collaboration protocol with Dar i Acordar. The Movement aims to promote and contribute to the recovery and donation of surpluses in general, and food surpluses in particular. With specific regard to the utilisation of food resources and goods, the aim of the activity is to make use of surplus food that is in perfect condition for consumption, with any public or private entity, with the sole purpose of providing for pressing social needs that affect needy social groups. In 2018, CM Loulé, in partnership with Zero Desperdício, offered the “Zero Desperdício” collection of books to primary school students, as a way of raising awareness of waste prevention and non-generation.

In the municipality of Loulé, the selective collection of bio-waste5, a project co-funded by the POSEUR and Portugal 2020 programmes, will be implemented by the end of 2023. Intending to encourage the population to separate their organic waste and dispose of it in the appropriate places available in the municipality, and thus reduce the amount of waste deposited in landfills, this dedicated collection system aims to promote the separation/disposal of organic food waste and has two strands. On the one hand, the domestic sector, in which the project will be implemented in three pilot areas - the urban areas of Loulé, Quarteira and Almancil - involving 26,000 homes, in a neighbourhood collection. Then there’s the non-domestic sector which, in the first phase, will be restricted to the centre of Loulé, involving 80 commercial establishments in the city, in a door-to-door collection logic. School canteens, creches and care homes will also be involved in the pilot-areas.

It should be noted that the collection of bio-waste will be carried out by 

dedicated vehicles, duly identified and with information on what they can and cannot collect. In order to monitor and follow-up the entire operation, a real-time management system will be implemented, transmitting information on routes and locations, as well as the equipment that has been collected, quantities, service time, fuel consumption and anomalies (improper deposits, the need to raise awareness, washing containers beyond what has already been defined, damage to equipment, etc.).

This project aims to promote greater valorisation of biodegradable municipal waste, with a view to reducing landfill and increasing recycling through selective collection. The project also aims to raise public awareness by carrying out publicity and communication actions on the importance of separating organic waste and recovering it. The planned actions are aimed at areas with the greatest technical and economic potential for the selective collection of biowaste, targeting the methodologies that best suit the reality of the pilot areas.

The municipality of Loulé works for its citizens, and in order to respond to their needs, it has created an Online Services Platform, which aims to bring citizens’ access to municipal services closer and easier, to speed up administrative processes and to facilitate interaction between the municipality and the citizen. This platform reflects the municipality’s commitment to dematerialisation and administrative modernisation, making interaction between citizens, legal entities and the council more agile and transparent, as well as saving resources (paper and toners). The online services provide specific forms for each situation, for electronic submission from any computer or mobile device, general and specific information for each request, as well as information on the progress of processes. This is a dynamic portal and the availability of digital services will be gradual and in line with citizens’ needs, with functionalities being developed whenever necessary.

The municipality of Loulé also has the GEO24LOULÉ Occurrences Management Platform, which aims to allow residents to register occurrences in the municipality online, facilitating faster and more efficient handling of them.

The municipality of Loulé has been certified in the Quality Management System (ISO 9001) since 2008, in the Environmental Management System (ISO 14001) since 2012 and in the Management System for Reconciling Professional, Family and Personal Life (NP 4552) since 2020, systems that encompass various municipal areas and services. By implementing an Integrated Management System (Quality, Environment and Conciliation), the municipality of Loulé is reinforcing its commitment to the continuous improvement of its services, meeting the needs and expectations of stakeholders (residents, suppliers and employees), promoting the minimisation of the environmental impacts of municipal activities and the well-being, quality of life and satisfaction of employees between their professional, family and personal lives.

Sustainable (+) urban waste management is one of the priorities of the municipality of Loulé, for which various measures are being implemented:

• Purchase of urban electric hoovers to clean public spaces, enhancing the quality of life and attractiveness of urban centres and helping to reduce the consumption of energy resources;
• Acquisition of solar-powered litter compactors to increase the installed litter capacity, which use solar energy for compaction and have interactive features and a communication system that indicates the filling rate for later collection;

• Municipal Ecocentre, which aims to improve the management of urban waste by providing convenient and accessible facilities for users to dispose of waste, bringing environmental added value (increased separation, recycling and reduced landfill);

• Acquisition of electric vehicles for waste collection and enforcement, which helps to reduce GHG emissions and the use of fossil fuels, improve air quality and reduce transport, maintenance and energy costs. They also have the advantage that, due to their quiet characteristics and compact nature, they can operate indoors at any time and in central urban areas with reduced accessibility.

The municipality of Loulé has been gradually dematerialising and digitising municipal services, works processes, public procurement and council meetings. This process is another step by the municipality towards implementing a policy of administrative modernisation, reducing bureaucracy and dematerialising municipal services, while at the same time making processes faster and more environmentally sustainable, bringing them closer to the population through the use of new technologies. This good practice, among others, has led to the creation of a document archive/shared folders in digital format, eliminating all use of paper and reducing consumption of this resource by around 80 per cent.

The municipality of Loulé currently has more than 12,000 students. For many years, pupils were in the habit of buying plastic water bottles at school for their consumption, generating a large volume of rubbish of this type. To this end, in line with the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, the Loulé municipality has been renovating and equipping schools with new drinking fountains, adapted to filling reusable bottles and canteens, so that every student has free quality water at their disposal (some of which are even offered by the municipality as part of other parallel projects).

The municipality of Loulé currently has around 5,126 pre-school and primary school pupils and is responsible for invoicing their parents for school meals. Until recently, invoicing was done using paper invoices sent by post, generating a large amount of paper and envelopes, as well as costs related to postage and printing. As a way of minimising these costs and impacts, the municipality has implemented a new electronic invoicing system, which is sent by email to parents, generating significant savings in terms of material and financial resources and a strong contribution to reducing the environmental footprint.

Turismo Criativo (in English Creative Tourism) is an initiative that aims to valorise the territory’s identity, with creativity and innovation as its driving force. It supports the training and activity of artisans and professionals in the creative sector, contributing to the revitalisation of traditional arts and to boosting new approaches to intangible heritage. It offers an attractive annual programme of creative residencies and experiences. The main strands of Loulé Criativo are: Creative Tourism, Loulé Design Lab and the Workshop Network (ECOA - Space for Knowledge, Workshops and the Arts). Through Creative Tourism, the Municipality of Loulé offers travellers the chance to immerse themselves in the municipality’s culture, providing them with unique experiences and learning, in line with the assumptions of sustainable tourism.

The entire programme for the project can be found at loulecriativo.pt 

Loulé Design Lab is a City Council project, launched in September 2017, which aims to actively support ideas and projects in the area of design applied to local culture, relying on the synergy of a wide network of partners. The main programme lines are the hosting and incubation of creators in shared workspaces, shared workshops and an exhibition room; the promotion of research projects applied to local production; a creation and product development laboratory; a network of partner workshops and a regular programme of artist residencies, workshops, conferences and exhibitions. Concern for sustainability runs throughout the incubator’s activities, both in the projects it hosts and in the actions and collaborations it brokers. It has networking as a principle and nurturing local and external connections is at its core.

Visit Loulé Design Lab site here and follow us on social media (Facebook and Instagram).