Stavanger (population 116,000) already has a remarkable recycling record: 90% of rubbish is recycled, with four different bins per household. "We can’t go much further," admitted parks manager Torgeir Sorensen. "Our aim now is to diminish use of packaging in shops and try to get people to leave the packaging behind in shops when they purchase something. We are trying to get stores to re-think their use of packaging."

Stavanger is also the first Norwegian city to actively promote freedom of speech and literature, and, historically it has provided refuge to persecuted writers from other countries. "We provide housing for these people and we publish their material," explained deputy mayor Bjoerg Moe. "It’s an important part of our international culture."

The new Path of Peace will carry the footprints of Nobel prize-winners – the first is that of the Nigerian peace campaigner Wangari Mati.

Stavanger has the smallest amount of green space of any city in Norway so has developed specific policies to preserve space for a variety of activities, whether it be elderly people sitting outside for a game of Scrabble or small children having a tree to climb. "We have 173 ‘pocket parks’ now," reported Mr Sorensen. "These range from somewhere just to ‘be’ to fields big enough for football."

St Walburg, near Saskatchewan in Canada, with a population of 750, is probably the smallest community presenting at Livcom. Alderman Tony Leeson commented: "If my house gets burgled, at least ten people will know about it!"

The town, which has only been in existence for 52 years and is aiming for a population of 1200, has a healthy volunteer ethic. A project was undertaken to dig up rare plants which were just growing in ditches – such as the Western Red Lily and Yellow Lady Slipper – and replant them on the 30km of wilderness trails for walkers to enjoy.

By the same token, a programme to eradicate the rampant weed Scentless Camomile has been undertaken by schoolchildren. Volunteers also purchased a stock of compost bins, selling two to each household, while dumped compost has been used as a base on which to plant a lakeside copse.

Among St Walberg’s many initiatives, is the "folksy" Wild Blueberry Festival, which takes place in August and attracts crowds of up to 5,000, while an energetic fund-raising programme enabled the building of a ‘Communiplex’ – sports centre and theatre – which is now worth CAN$3 million.

"It’s a stable community and a classless society with very few committees," said Mr Leeson. "Our aim is to maintain the small town atmosphere while increasing tourism."

The three delegates from the market town of Aylsham (population 5,900) have undertaken to plant 32 trees on their return because they calculate that is what their journey to Hangzhou has cost in carbon emissions. "We might even call it the Livcom Copse," said district councillor Jo Cottingham.

The trees will be planted at Blickling Hall, the National Trust property adjoining Aylsham.

Main aims for the future include the continued management of traffic through the market square and maintaining the tight planning rules which forbid building homes which do not fit into the medieval architecture of the town.

Among Aylsham’s innovations are a project to recycle street sweepings, so that the organic material can be re-used for road-mending plus, under a Broadly Active programme, guided health walks to give confidence to people returning to physical activity after illness.

Aylsham’s special project, "Bags of Sense", is a direct result of the delegation’s attendance of the 2005 Livcom awards. "We realised that there is a major problem with plastic bags," said Mrs Cottingham. "Government intervention isn’t enough and the communal activities of individuals can make significant contributions. There is nothing you can’t do with a plastic bag that you can also do with wool or raffia, and so we have started a workshop which makes handbags out of plastic bags."

Clonakilty in West Cork, a regular Livcom attendant, has had an enormously positive response to its new recycling centre, which was built last year. So far, 82,385 visits have been made and 14,048 tons of rubbish has been recycled. "This is remarkable considering that we only have a population of 3,750," said the mayor, Seamus O’Brien.

Clonakilty boasts a healthy lifestyle owing to its emphasis on sport – "We’re a pretty healthy race, the Irish" – said Mr O’Brien -with over 20 clubs, including a new Special Olympics Club which helps the disabled to participate and compete in sport. The town is also the first in Ireland to be an official Free Trade town.

Best of all, the beautiful beaches on the Atlantic coast have been awarded two Blue Flags for cleanliness. This is the result of the work of volunteers, and Clonakilty has two Green Flag schools, awarded this accolade for having environmentally sensitive practices.

Every summer there is a Junior Litter Programme, in which children under 12 years old perform a litter patrol, for which they are rewarded with icecreams by local shopkeepers. "We work hard and we play hard," concluded Mr O’Brien.

A recent success was the ‘second fridge’ project, in which we offered to buy back people’s second fridges, many of which are either unnecessary or unhelpful to the environment."

Another council initiative was giving away 55,000 low energy lightbulbs, while the council works department has reached 100% on the recycling of its water.

With 30km of beach and 11 million visitors a year, coastal preservation is a big issue. Recently 700 volunteers helped restore the sand dunes by stabilising them and planting 2,000 trees. There is also 15km of board walkway.

"We have really clean beaches – you can see the fish swimming," said Sima Truuvert, the Iranian-born director of city planning. With 54% of our community coming from overseas – like myself – the great challenge is to integrate them all. We work hard at bringing community groups together to celebrate our achievements."

The show also promoted the "Council Cab", transport for the less mobile, a car-sharing service, a range of environmentally-friendly cars, including those solar-powered, plus walking maps of the area (population 66,000). Council workers are given interest-free loans on bicycles.

Water shortage is a key problem – Sydney’s dam is down to 38% - and Willoughby has a unique AUS$5.4million project to build the Chatswood Integrated Water Management System, the only one of its kind in Australia. This will store storm water, irrigate sports fields, fill cooling towers for air-conditioning systems and produce water toilet-flushing.

Willoughby has a remarkable volunteer ethic, with special enthusiasm for preservation of the natural bush areas. This includes Flat Rock Gully, which degenerated, losing much of its flora and fauna. Now it is home to such creatures as the Powerful Owl, Burton’s Legless Lizard, the Red-crowned Toadlet, short-nosed Echidna, long-nosed Bandicoot and Swamp Wallaby.

"We don’t have an enormous budget and much of what we achieve is community-led," explained the mayor, Pat Reiley. "We keep interest through a lot of community consultation and negotiation; this equals agreement which translates into action. We communicate through sub-committees and newsletters, but some people actually just want to meet their neighbours, not sit on committees."

Fifteen years ago, Gateshead was just another town in post-industrial decline, explained John Robinson, group director of the local and environmental service. The town is almost unrecognisable now.

For instance, a burnt-out colliery has been regenerated with over 70,000 trees, a wildfowl lake and wild flower meadow. The red kite bird which was reintroduced to the area last year has now produced its first young.

As part of Gateshead’s Next to Nature programme, the kittiwakes which occupied an old grain warehouse – now the Baltic Arts Centre – have been rehoused in a kittiwake tower. "The idea is to bring people and wildlife together," explained Tony Alder, head of business support.

Another hugely popular feature is "Cycler", a robotic, andrognynous creature who is operated by remote control and patrols classrooms instructing children to tell their parents about recycling. "They love him," said Mr Alder.

Gateshead has a Vision 2030 programme. Every year the landscape changes by one per cent, which means it has changed 25% since the city’s regeneration programme began. The challenge is to this while preserving the natural heritage of the area. "We’ve recently developed a housing renewal programme to deal with unwanted housing and provide a better mix of homes. People are now living in areas they wouldn’t have dreamed of before," said Mr Robinson.

But he admitted there was sometimes resistance. "There are sometimes objections to demolitions. We work with heritage groups, but obviously sometimes they feel they cannot support everything we want to do.

"As far as recycling goes, we are comparatively slow in comparison to many of the other nations here at Livcom, and that remains a big issue for us, especially diversifying from landfill."

Gus Stahlmann, a judge on the Project Awards, has been involved with Livcom for three years. "What is happening now is that we’re seeing better presentations because delegations are learning from one year to the next. They are also learning from each other. The result of this is that the whole world will begin to make beneficial changes to the way they live.

"We are judging both national and small-town projects, but they all have the same criteria, in that they must support heritage and the environment and encourage sustainable living."