Fifteenth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

The Creative Economy Observatory is a research related to the measurement of creative economy in Santos City, Brazil, including the assessment of cultural fields in its various dimensions and performance over time. It gathers more than twenty indicators, becoming a tool for decision making. The initiative was inspired by the 2005 UNESCO Convention of Diversity of Cultural Expressions. The Creative Economy Observatory was referenced by UNESCO in the publication “2018 Global Report Re-Shapping Cultural Policies,” released in December 2017. In this communication it will be explained the creation, challenges and lessons learned. Santos is a coastal city of 430,000 inhabitants located only seventy km from Sao Paolo. Its gross domestic product is about US$ seven billion, making Santos the thirty-eighth wealthiest city among the 5,570 Brazilian cities. Santos also appears in several rankings as the best city to live in Brazil, as well as leads and composes several rankings of public security, urbanism, management, government transparency, and so forth. But on the other hand, the city deals with serious issues concerned to social and economic inequality. Anyway, as the three main characteristics usually attributed to creative cities are clearly identified in Santos, including connections, innovation, and cultural assets. In this context, the policies are focused on creative economy to foster social, economic, and urban sustainable development.