Hull: Green City

Hull City Council wanted to develop a long term strategy to develop a ‘Green City’, by breaking away from the traditional process, and writing a strategy by consulting and engaging with stakeholders and partners in a different way. Appreciating People facilitated a project group, who co-designed and managed the process, including three World Café events, a schools event and large group summit.

Key themes in the process were:

• Identifying what Hull does well now as a green city, and the foundations that could be built on
• What Hull would look like as a world class green city
• The small steps and radical steps needed to achieve internal and external recognition as a green city

The schools workshop combined a World Café approach with the use of visual arts to create posters describing what a Green Hull would look like. They were entered into a competition and the winners received their prize at the summit.

The summit built on the work and information from the preceeding work to explore the following themes:

• What does Hull as a Green city do well now?
• What are the key elements of a Green city?
• What do we need to do differently?
• a possible vision statement and potential strap lines

Information was captured through group feedback, open space feedback sheets, and visual minuters, in a vivid and easily accessible format – that artwork is displayed at venues across the city. Each of these questions produced a proposed set of actions. At the end of the process participants were asked to provide their views on the event and sign up to follow on actions they wish to take.