The HeraLAB model: more dialogue and co-planning

Recently started in Bologna and Rimini, in 2018 this model was applied to the areas of Ferrara and Ravenna, involving 24 representatives of the local communities in 10 meetings, for a total of 300 hours of discussions. The result? 12 co-planned projects that Hera undertakes to implement by the end of 2020.

HeraLAB is one of the relationship tools that Hera has designed to improve the dialogue with local communities and their stakeholders. They are workshops for the area that the company activated in 2013 to discover and investigate the needs of the public and the knowledge of the settings in which it operates.

An already successful project that improved even further in the 2018 edition in Ferrara and Ravenna and that will continue this year in Rimini and Bologna. It is a completely new model, which distinguishes itself from the previous edition, first of all due to the marked simplification of the process (the duration of the new LAB is reduced from three years to one) and to the greater awareness of the stakeholders.

In fact, the stakeholders are given more time to discuss the topics they consider to be of the greatest interest with the company. At five meetings concentrated in a year, private individuals and representatives of Hera will share their local needs and, through the co-planning phase, identify the projects that the company will implement during the following two years at the LAB.

The novelty of co-planning and the projects of the Ravenna and Ferrara workshops

The last meeting is certainly the main novelty introduced by the new HeraLAB model. In fact, during the meeting #4Co-progettare, the participants and Hera representatives define together the single projects with the objective and needs to be satisfied, the target and the engagement tools, and finally the title of the project. Both in Ravenna and in Ferrara, the projects associated with environmental issues were the winners. In Ravenna, the LAB workshop elaborated several actions, which included increasing the recovery of used oil with the engagement of local associations and the implementation of a new area of reuse of the waste collection point of Ravenna Romea Nord to enhance the value of the reusable goods for charitable purposes. Attention was also naturally focused on the plastic issue through the idea of setting up a virtuous circuit between fishing consortia and other stakeholders for collecting the plastic from the sea. In Ferrara, the LAB workshop participants asked Hera to work together on the communication campaigns for students foreigners on the good practices to be respected to separate waste properly, and also to strengthen the information on the complexity of the water service, with particular reference to breakages in the network: from the time of the breakage to the resolution of the problem. This year, the new HeraLAB was also activated in Rimini and Bologna, where the first #0Ascoltare meeting was held in March. The participants of the new LAB workshops were thus able to reflect on a proposal of themes significant for the area and a series of questions to be asked to the company. The questions will all be answered at the #1Conoscere meeting, when the Hera directors and managers will make their considerations to allow the LAB to define its map and plan projects for the area.