A software for sustainable development projects

Linea21 is a free, open-source software dedicated to assisting territorial authorities and private companies in communicating about their Agenda21 and other sustainable development initiatives and helping them to assess their policies.

It is a web-based tool supporting sustainable development strategies and offering top-down communication from institutions to citizens. It also empowers citizens (bottom-up), giving them a chance to express themselves and participate in thematics workgroups. It promotes and strengthens dialogue and cooperation between all stakeholders.

Finally, it offers local authorities an efficient way to evaluate their sustainable development policies through a strategic dashboard and monitoring indicators.

Download the presentation booklet: Linea21 presentation booklet

Project management
Assessment
Communication
Cooperation/empowerment
Other features

Carry out your project

1 – Manage your actions

Linea21 provides a dedicated module to manage your sustainable development actions over time. You will be able to enter a large quantity of useful information regarding each project: goal(s), description, management committee, coordinators, partners, schedule, budget, etc.

Using a tagging mechanism, you will be able to differentiate several initiatives (i.e. : ‘agenda21’ and ‘Climate and energy package’) within the same tool.

2 – Get your stakeholders involved

Through a simple but powerful user permission system, contributors can manage their own project. This means that they are autonomous to perform project updates and assess project progression by feeding in related indicators.

3 – Anticipate action evolution

With dedicated workgroups associated to individual actions, stakeholders will be offered a space to exchange ideas and documents and make the implementation of each action even more efficient.

4 – Export your action

Different formats are available for action exports: PDF, MS Word, HTML.

5 – Simplify generation of official documents

Using Linea21, you will be able to automatically generate elements such as actions, indicators charts and tables… that you can then integrate into official documents.

Run your own assessment with a continuous improvement approach

1 – Define and feed your strategic dashboard

Linea21 is the right tool to define and feed your sustainable development strategic dashboard. Linea21’s dashboard is fully customizable:

Strategic dashboard visualization at a glance
Edition and creation of new indicators
Import of your existing dashboard
Gathering of exhaustive informations on indicators: goals, improvement recommendations, pertinence criteria, suppliers, law references
Multi-scale values
Multi-value indicators (ex : greenhouse gas/GHG emission inventory, energy balance…)
Export of your data under several formats: PDF, Word, Excel, HTML, XML.
Graphical representation of indicators
…

2 – Centralize your data

By choosing Linea21, you choose to centralize your indicator data. Regular backups can easily be performed to ensure your dashboard data are safe.

3 – Be transparent

Beyond self-assessment, the dashboard is an adequate tool to communicate to citizens about your territorial public actions.

4 – Simplify generation of official documents

Using Linea21, you will be able to automatically generate elements such as your strategic dashboard, indicators charts and tables… that you can then integrate into official documents.

Let people know about your initiative!

1 – Inform people

Inform your citizens day by day using the news module offered by the application. All CMS tools and facilities are included in Linea21.

2 – Develop a pedagogical approach

The publication module allows you to diffuse structured content. A publication is made up of parts and can easily embed multimedia items, bibliographical references and external links. This module aims to create thematic and pedagogical content.

3 – Send a newsletter

Keep people up-to-date by regularly sending your newsletter.

Want your project to be fully shared? Encourage people to participate

1 – Give people a voice

The comment module allows people to react and share thoughts on content.

2 – Stakeholder cooperation: workgroups

Share your goals, get a better idea of population needs, be attentive to inhabitants’ requests, and get them involved into the local sustainable development policy. Each citizen has the ability to participate in one or several workgroups. Subscribing to a workgroups, users have access to the following features:

a shared calendar
a forum
a document-sharing space
workgroup reports
an email notification system

3 – Delegate tasks to others

The user rights system allows you to create accounts with limited permissions. For example, a user can have writing access to news and be an animator of a specific workgroup without being allowed to access others functionalities.

Promote the local network at different scales

1 – Multi-scale approach

Linea21 integrates a geographical approach. Information can be linked to a specific scale: neighborhood, city, state…

2 – Sustainable development directory

Additional features

1 – Multi-scale availability

All Linea21 modules are designed to work at multi-scale levels: region, district, city, neighbourhood…

2 – Directory availability

A directory is embedded into the application. Entries can be suggested by users and need administrator approval before being published. The directory has automatic geocoding capability and entries are available on maps.

3 – Differentiated user content

The user permissions system and application options allow the application to display suitable content to each user.

4 – A modular approach

Each feature is made of one independent module which can be enabled/disabled by changing options in the configuration file based on your needs. Note that core modules are required.

5 – A multilingual application

Linea21 is translation ready. It is already available in French, English, Italian and Spanish. If you would like to contribute by translating Linea21 into German or any other language or by keeping the translation up-to-date, let us know!

6 – Other features…

Linea21 is flexible and offers many configuration options. Here is a non-exhaustive list :

Actions are structured by purpose/goals
A ‘tag’ system allows logical links between items
The configuration file is editable online
A template system makes graphical integration easier
A plug-in system makes Linea21 expandable and flexible
URL rewriting
…