FairShare - the world's first certification of equal environments

Tengbom, the City of Helsingborg, the Raoul Wallenberg Institute for Human Rights and RISE are now launching the world's first certification system for creating equal public environments and cities. The FairShare certification intends to ensure that public environments and urban planning takes all grounds of discrimination, social sustainability and human rights into consideration. Several pilot projects will launch in 2022.

FairShare provides a framework to work systematically and preventively with all criteria for discrimination, as well as fulfilling human rights and achieving social sustainability.

– If we want an equal city, we can not continue to plan and build as we have always done, says Vesna Vasiljkovic, business and office manager at Tengbom who was project manager and initiator of FairShare together with the city of Helsingborg. The intention has been to create a system for innovative work with equality and human rights in architectural and urban development processes. Our hope is that FairShare will inspire and make a change in how the industry works with equality.

A beta version of the certification is now in place to start using hands on, and the system can be scaled. Everything from general plans, plan programs, detailed plans and placemaking to property development and design. Several cities have already started using FairShare. The first project was launched together with the city of Helsingborg. Now, the municipality of Arvika will certify its entire process to produce a plan overview and thereby increase its competence in equality management. Ängelholmshem will certify its process to produce a development plan for a new residential area.

– It is the responsibility of the entire public sector in Sweden to realize equal human rights, says Anna Bruce at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute for Human Rights. For this to become a reality, concrete tools adapted to public activities at national, regional and municipal level are required. FairShare is just such a tool. It is tailored to be able to apply a human rights-based approach in the urban planning process.

The system is based on national discrimination and accessibility legislation as well as international conventions on human rights. The guiding principles of the process are the three basic principles of human rights-based work: non-discrimination and equality, participation and inclusion, and transparency and responsibility.

The pre-study for the certification showed that many have a need to concretize the issue of equality. Working with equality is extra important in all the city's public spaces - such as libraries, cultural arenas and sports halls, schools, squares, parks and streets.

– In most municipalities, there is a desire to make urban planning accessible and enjoyable for everyone, but unfortunately there is often a lack of knowledge about the significance of design for equality, says Ingrid Isaksson, auditor and project manager at RISE. Even if the ambitions are positive, they will not be fully realized. By having a third party come in and go through a certification, the municipalities ensure that they achieve their goals set in terms of equality in urban planning.

FairShare participates in the international fair H22 City Expo in Helsingborg. On 10th of June, a kickoff conference will be held with experts and inspirational speakers in the field of equality. Visitors can also take part in the first FairShare project People's Walk, which is located near the conference. The conference seminars provide good opportunities to learn more about equality work in urban development.

– We practitioners, who work with the urban environment, have lacked working methods for how we should handle the city's ambitions for equality and equal opportunities, says Moa Sundberg, urban environment strategist at the City of Helsingborg. I work with safety in the urban environment and for a long time I have wanted to add the equality aspects. That is why we started this work over four years ago. We hope that this will not only change the way we work, but that it will become the norm throughout the industry.

The work with FairShare has been financed by, among others, Vinnova.

Contact:

Vesna Vasiljkovic, Business and Office Manager Tengbom email vesna.vasiljkovic@tengbom.se, phone: 0733 232624

Moa Sundberg, urban designer, City of Helsingborg email moa.sundberg@helsingborg.se, telephone: 0733 130227

Anna Bruce, researcher, Raoul Wallenberg Institute for Human Rights, email anna.bruce@rwi.lu.se, telephone: 0702 201527

Ingrid Isaksson, auditor and project manager at RISE email: ingrid.isaksson@ri.se, telephone: 0706 812167