The European Green Cities Development Foundation is a platform that aims at promoting best practices, facilitating research and knowledge exchange, and collaborating with partners to provide design and solutions that contribute to sustainable urban development. The foundation aims to implement Nature-based Solutions (NbS) in different places with its network and stakeholders around the world.
The basis of the foundation is that NbS can play an important role in relieving pressures on the environment that urban development causes. NbS are, according to the European Union, “living solutions inspired by, continuously supported by and using nature, which are designed to address various societal challenges in a resource-efficient and adaptable manner and to provide simultaneously economic, social, and environmental benefits.” The foundation has developed four main themes in terms of NbS applications, namely: Climate Adaptation, Health & Biodiversity, Blue Green Network, Food & Energy. According to these themes, the foundation will actively contribute to sharing examples of green city projects and innovative concepts, engaging with interest groups and stakeholders, collaborating on the realization of green city designs, co-researching, and training future generations and policymakers.
Each city has its features and challenges according to their geographical location. From the growing internal and external pressures, decision-makers must evaluate the current threshold of the city as well as the vulnerable aspects in terms of resilience to different crises and disasters and draw scenarios to roll out urban (re)development strategies and approaches to minimize the risks and maximize health and well-being.
The European Green Cities Development Foundation is established to help solve these urban challenges with Nature-based Solutions, by offering expert training, consultancy, networking events, a knowledge-sharing platform, and facilitating research for enhancing the resilience of future cities around the world.
This partnership will allow IHS to help implement Nature-based Solutions and create sustainable cities. The partnership is a continuation of our collaboration with partners from our project Integrated Urban Solutions in China.
Nature-based Solutions is an important focus for IHS. It is one of the main themes of our Master track Urban Environment, Sustainability & Climate Change and of recent courses and training such as Building with Nature - Creating Smart and Climate-Resilient Cities with Nature-based Solutions in Southeast Asia, in the Philippines; Peacebuilding in peri-urban areas in Colombia: nature-based solutions for community resilience, in Colombia; and Nature-Based Solutions for Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation: Building Resilience for Municipalities, in Nepal.
