The ACROSS project, involving the City of Hannut and HEC Liège (ULiège)'s sustainable strategy department since 2024, aims to help territories better align public and private actors' sustainable development goals to increase their tangible impact.
In Hannut, efforts are focused on implementing the new Strategic Transversal Plan (PST) 2024-2030. Rather than modifying the PST itself, the ambition is to optimize the daily implementation mechanisms: governance, procedures, and territorial collaborations.
To achieve this, HEC ULiège and the city are working on two complementary levers. The first concerns strengthening sustainable public procurement. The municipality, which makes numerous annual purchases, seeks to integrate environmental, social, and economic criteria. Needs identified since spring 2026 include simplifying procedures, improving access to suitable sustainable criteria, enhancing agents' knowledge, and incorporating sustainability issues into specifications.
Two priority levers have been identified: automating certain procedural steps and providing practical tools to help departments more easily integrate sustainability criteria into their purchasing.
The second area of work involves creating a vade-mecum for sustainable collaboration. This document aims to clarify the processes for the many territorial actors wishing to collaborate with the municipality. It will present the commune's sustainable development priorities, various possible forms of collaboration, and associated administrative procedures.
Inspired by a best practice from Milan, this reference guide, intended for both external stakeholders and municipal agents, will facilitate collaborations, improve decision coherence across departments, and enhance transparency.
By the autumn of 2026, the analysis and co-construction phase is well advanced. Participatory workshops and consultations have helped identify priority needs and define the structure of the two tools. A first draft of the vade-mecum is underway, while tools for sustainable public procurement are being improved with the relevant department. Collaborations are also underway with Explane SRL, the SPW développement durable, and the Union des Villes et Communes de Wallonie to ensure the relevance, legal soundness, and dissemination potential of these tools.
The ACROSS project will continue until March 2027, with several deliverables expected: a strengthened framework for integrating sustainability criteria into municipal public procurement, simplified tools and procedures for municipal agents, a vade-mecum for sustainable collaboration for external stakeholders, political and operational validation of these new mechanisms, and the first concrete implementation tests within the City of Hannut.
