Positioning
The concept of sustainability arises as a response to the need of guaranteeing future life on the planet, proposing the compatibility of environmental, economic and social factors, in search of a balance between social and economic progress and environmental protection.
In order to achieve this, sustainable development promotes the rational use of natural resources, protecting them from degradation and being used up, so that future generations will also be able to use them to meet their own needs.
Sustainable development does not try to block progress, but rather the opposite - it tries to ensure it in the long term, a task in which the participation of all social agents is the determining factor.
The Regional Government Sustainable Development and Environment Department, aware of this situation, has launched the Sustainable Development Core Programme with the purpose of promoting the application of specific actions in local entities geared to achieving the above-mentioned goals.
Within this programme the Sustainable Development Local Agencies are especially relevant, as apart from working as a link between the local and regional authorities, they have been entrusted with integrating and co-ordinating all the tasks directed at achieving sustainable development through an integrated Sustainability Plan.
Action is therefore promoted on a municipal level, as local government is the smallest political unit and the closest to the people, who in turn take part in the main process.
Communication
The graphic image developed to identify the Local Sustainability Core Programme proceeds from the premise that is the foundation for the whole project: the need to find a stable balance between progress and environmental respect, which at the same time should not block social and economic advances.
In order to transmit these ideas we had recourse to the depiction of a series of gears, which apart from indicating progress derived from the operation of complex machinery, incorporate in their core the different elements implied in the application of actions aimed at sustainable development, i.e. social agents, the natural environment and technological progress.
The final composition suggests that, just as on the inside of a precision device, the movement of each piece is essential for the correct functioning of the other pieces and, therefore, of the whole machine.
And at the end of the day this is precisely what sustainable development consists of. If all social agents take the natural environment into account when working, the progress of society will be guaranteed, as at the same time, the future of natural resources that make it possible is being guaranteed.