Abstract
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According to Action Agenda 21, adopted at the Rio Conference in 1992, sustainable development should be realized as the overall goal of development locally and globally. Economic growth, good living conditions, and protection of the earth's natural environment are very important to all people.
Existing research shows that legislative and administrative policy documents have impact on practical work with sustainable development nationally, regionally, and locally (Lodhia et al., 2012). Public sector agencies have a position to lead sustainable development and spread information about the results (Ball et al., 2006; Marcuccio & Steccolini, 2005; Osborne and Ball, 2011). They do that to show accountability and keep legitimacy. However, public sector authorities have to cooperate with other organizations and various stakeholders in this regard (Farneti & Guthrie, 2009; Adolfsson Jörby, 2002; Feichtinger & Pregernig 2005). Deegan et al., 2002; Wilmhurst & Frost, 2000; Steccolini, 2004 share the opinion that scholars focus mostly on content analysis of sustainable information like annual and sustainability reports, brochures, or other documents (e.g., Gonzalez and Perez-Chamorro, 2008). We focus instead on the dissemination of sustainability information among various stakeholders and its effect on sustainable development in big cities.
The research purpose is to describe and compare how the municipal authorities of big cities in Sweden and Poland are working in practice with the dissemination of sustainable information among stakeholders. What effects do dissemination of sustainability information have on sustainable development in investigated cities?
Big cities are chosen because the governance of those municipalities is somehat different from other cities, but in the mean time they are rolemodels to many other cities. Secondly, Poland during transition from socialism to a market economy and during waiting on accession to the EU, received a technical assistance from Sweden, which was very appreciated by the Polish authorities (Sobis 2002; Sobis & de Vries 2009). Thirdly, Sweden belongs to the leading countries in working with sustainable development, which suggests that Poland could learn from the best. Fourthly, both countries are members of the European Union and follow similar directives.
The research is based on state regulations, directives on sustainable development, municipal homepages, policy documents, official reports, and semi-structured interviews with key-respondents responsible for sustainable development.
Findings from our research indicate that the dissemination of sustainable information among citizens and stakeholders have strengthened the sustainability work in general. A municipality can be perceived as a precursor to follow for other organizations and other municipalities in both countries. The dissemination of sustainable information in Poland is not just bleak imitations of the Swedish municipal work. In both countries can be observed innovative work with sustainable information and development, simultaneously displaying respect to the EU general recommendations.
This kind of research is important since it makes us reflect that although the production and dissemination of sustainable information is time-consuming and not always proves useful in the short run, in the long run the spread of sustainable information may be surprisingly positive for sustainable development locally.
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