Browsing by Subject "involvement"

The concept of bioeconomy has been harnessed to support societies and their economies to produce value added products from renewable biological resources and to develop circular economy. Such systems require actions from a variety of actors from public and private sectors to consumers. As a heavily forested country Finland’s bioeconomy leans largely on the utilization of forests. Planned pulp and paper industry investments call for end-uses for logs to balance out the wood supply. Both forests and the construction sector are also focal areas in climate change mitigation. Wooden multistorey construction (WMC) and its capability to store carbon has been suggested as a partial solution to the aforementioned issues. The aim of this study is to investigate the relation of WMC and the bioeconomy and the role of end-users in WMC. This explorative study uses qualitative research methods to address its research ques-tions. The data consists of seven focus group interviews conducted in the metropolitan area of Helsinki between September 2017 and February 2019. The interviewed groups, with altogether 26 participants, included an academic expert group, three market actor groups (firm representatives, architects and property managers) and three wooden multistorey resident groups. The residents’ type of housing included rental, owner-occupancy and right-of-occupancy and the buildings were built between 2015 and 2017. Thematization was used for data analysis. Results of the study show that despite Finland’s close-knit relation to its forests and traditions in utiliz-ing wood, WMC is not currently perceived culturally embedded as part of the society nor the construc-tion industry. WMC is still a niche in the country and it also seems more connected to mechanical wood industry than the construction industry. WMC was associated with the bioeconomy by non-resident groups, although experts recognized also potential pitfalls in the current discourse. Percep-tions that were aligned with the general discourse of the bioeconomy are mainly related to material renewability, possibilities to recycle wooden construction material, wood products capabilities to store carbon, and Finland’s relatively abundant forest resources. Despite WMC’s publicly declared role in the bioeconomy programmes, some underlying features make its rationale challenging for consumers, which could turn out to be a hindrance for WMC growth in the future. Generally, experts, firm represent-atives and architects were pro-wood and considered that WMC is still being unjustly stigmatized by various actors. In accordance with previous studies, the interviewed WMC residents were satisfied with their apart-ments and the building as such. A wooden frame does not seem to surpass traditional housing prefer-ences of consumers, but it is perceived as a benefit when choosing housing. Results of this study are much in line with previous findings, which indicate that environmental aspects matter, but not as much as health or other more personal aspects of living. Wood can be sensed in the building and apart-ments, which is perceived positively. However, the prevailing fire safety legislation, which was consid-ered as too strict, constrains the use of wood on visible surfaces in interiors. WMC seems to have an environmentally friendly image among residents, which however calls for better communication.

This Master’s thesis is a study of the basis and nature of participatory budgeting in the City of Helsinki, called OmaStadi, in context of international participatory budgeting models. My task is to find specific qualities in Helsinki’s participatory budgeting solution, recognise its model and, if possible, name it. Deliberative democratic theory serves as background. Other central concepts are involvement, engagement, participation and light participation. By nature this thesis is a case study with the city's decision documents as main body of material, supplemented with expert interviews. Background chapter describes discovery of participatory budgeting in Brazil’s Porto Alegre in the 1980’s and diffusion around the world in various versions. I leave for further investigation my observation that the method was already known earlier in the fields of financial management and school management. In Finnish circumstances participatory budgeting combines long known functions of citizens’ right of initiative, joint planning and public referendum in a new way. Participatory budgeting arrived in Helsinki earlier than is usually known. In the years 1999–2011 city schools implemented targeted pedagogical participatory budgeting as a part of youth participation program ”Hesan Nuorten Ääni” following the model of Norway’s city of Porsgrunn. Also unit level participatory budgeting has been tried out, with notable examples of a pilot in the New Central Library Project and the operating model of Maunula House culture and community centre. Present enseble of participatory budgetings in Helsinki consists of four complementary parts: 1) School-specific ”Ruuti-raha”, 2) youth work unit level ”RuutiBudjetti”, together with OmaStadi processes in 3) seven major districts and 4) the whole city. Specific qualities in the OmaStadi model are coequal individual participation and intensive involvement in planning. OmaStadi does not constitute new representative elements like the internationally noted Porto Alegre model and nearest reference point, Helsinki's youth work RuutiBudjetti do. Compared to internationally noted achetypes of participatory budgeting, Helsinki’s solution is a hybrid combining features from different models while emphasizing the co-development phase to which time is invested generously from both the citizen proposers as well as the city’s experts. This way, for a moment, the citizens themselves become part of the administration.