The planet is warming up, and a lot of us feel pretty powerless to stop it. No matter how many rubbish paper straws you drink out of or plastic packages you recycle, it never feels like enough. Any real change has to come at a much larger scale – entire cities dedicated to sustainability. Luckily, those cities exist, and the European Green Cities Awards exist to recognise their efforts.
The awards have been running since 2010, when Stockholm became Europe’s first-ever Green Capital. Nordic cities generally tend to dominate sustainability rankings, such as the Global Destination Sustainability (GDS) Index, but the Green Cities Awards recognise successes throughout the entire continent.
Cities are named two years in advance, and 2027’s winner was just announced at a huge celebration in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital and current titleholder. Winners are decided by an expert jury who considers things like air quality, commitment to green energy, and any future sustainability-related plans or schemes that are in place.
After much consideration, the panel has named Heilbronn in Germany the Green Capital of Europe for 2027.
Heilbronn is a fairly small city, best known for its gorgeous architecture and miles of vineyards. It’s also been going green for some time now, with judges being impressed by its holistic approach to sustainable urban planning, and its ‘ambitious targets for 2035’. The city is currently working on two major projects – the Landscape Plan 2030, and Mobility Concept – both of which tackle air quality and noise pollution as a combined, complex problem.
According to the European Commission, Heilbronn has adopted a strategy which recognises that ‘citizen engagement is central’ to improving the environment within the city, and the wider region. It has introduced ‘participatory platforms, awareness campaigns, and protection for quiet areas’ to try and get locals invested in its plans.
The city wins €600,000 to go towards implementing ‘measures of sustainability and participation’ in the next two years. Two cities were also named as the winners of the European Green Leaf Award, which is designed to ‘recognise the environmental efforts and achievements’ of towns or cities with populations of less than 100,000.
Assen in the Netherlands and Sienna in Italy were this years’ Green Leaf winners, each earning €200,000 from the European Commission. Assen impressed judges with its ‘innovative waste management policies including enhanced PMD (Plastic, Metal, and Drink cartons) collection, and initiatives such as Repair Cafés’, where you can bring broken items and have them fixed by a local volunteer.
Sienna has similarly recycled 61 percent of all waste, and built loads of new urban parks resulting in an average of 28 square metres of public green spaces’ per person.
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