European Green Capital 2017 to be announced in June

15.05.2015

Essen in Germany, ‘s-Hertogenbosch in Netherlands, Nijmegen also in Netherlands and Umeå in Sweden - these are the four finalists for the European Green Capital Award 2017. Every year the Award is presented to one European city with over 100,000 inhabitants, commending its efforts to improve the urban environment and promote a healthier and more sustainable living space.

An international and independent panel of experts chose the finalist cities out of 12 candidate cities by assessing several aspects, for example, local transport system, water management and waste water treatment, waste management, quality of the acoustic environment, eco-innovation and other sustainable environment criteria.

Bristol, the current European Green Capital, will host the Jury deliberations on June 17, where the four shortlisted cities will present their future goals, their citizens’ communication activities, and their readiness to act as a role model. The European Green Capital 2017 will be announced on June 18 at an official Award ceremony.

Lahti in Finland, Cork in Ireland, Istanbul and Bursa in Turkey, Porto, Lisbon and Cascais in Portugal, as well as Pécs in Hungary were the applicant cities for European Green Capital 2017. The award is presented since 2010 and among previous winning cities are Copenhagen (chosen for its active development of cycling infrastructure), Stockholm, Hamburg, Vitoria-Gastiez, Nantes and Bristol where its citizens are actively participating in improving the urban environment and the local municipality has committed considerable funds to promote sustainable urban environment.  In 2016, Ljubljana in Slovenia will hold the European Green Capital title.

The European Green Capital award is the result of an initiative taken in 2006 by 15 European cities, Riga among them, in cooperation with Association of Estonian cities. By awarding this title, the European Union is encouraging cities to set ambitious long term goals for improving the environment, thus showing a good example to other cities. 

More information on European Green Capital award here.

Information prepared for project "Non-governmental sector participation in the international conference" EU Biodiversity strategy implementation "" financed by Latvian national budget-funded program "Support for public participation in the Latvian Presidency of the Council of the European Union implementation" and administered by the Society Integration Foundation.