Editorial
Welcome to the first URBAN GreenUP Newsletter! This series of newsletters will keep you well-informed about URBAN GreenUP, a project co-financed under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. Goal of the project? To make our cities more liveable by implementing Re-Naturing Urban Plans (a set of replicable strategies that use nature-based solutions) and innovative business models into 8 cities from 3 different continents.
Our cities have become more populated and denser this past century. With climate change, we experience episodes of unexpected flooding, increased heat waves and worsening air quality. One sustainable approach to mitigate these effects consists of tailoring Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) strategies for each city. However, the story does not end there.
We see the need to find a more sustainable way in implementing these strategies to countries worldwide, while offering everyone a chance to create a “green economy” they can benefit from. So, we have formed a highly multidisciplinary consortium consisting of 25 partners from 9 countries to achieve this dream.
URBAN GreenUP began in June 2017 and will run for five years. It will lead to the design and implementation of multiple and connected NBS in three front-runner cities: Valladolid (Spain), Liverpool (The United Kingdom) and Izmir(Turkey). These NBS will take on key urban challenges such as water management, green areas, air quality and biodiversity. Five other partner cities, called follower cities, will work to enable replicability of the URBAN GreenUPsolutions and pave the way towards the creation of an international network of green cities. These are Ludwigsburg (Germany), Mantova (Italy), Medellín(Colombia), Chengdu (China) and Quy Nhon (Vietnam). Our meeting in Izmir past January was an opportunity for effective knowledge sharing and activity coordination.
Finally, URBAN GreenUP is also proudly part of a wide network of EU-funded projects cooperating to reintroduce nature into cities via innovative strategies.
We invite you to have a glimpse of the URBAN GreenUP activities through our newsletter. It includes the latest news from the project’s demonstration sites and interviews with experts. Moreover, it is catered for everyone – policy makers, local governments, research communities and citizens – who shares our NBS initiative. You are also welcome to take a look at the URBAN GreenUPwebsite, to follow us on social media to stay tuned on our journey and to join our community to create a better future for our cities.
Enjoy your reading!
Raúl Sánchez
URBAN GreenUP coordinator
CARTIF Technology Center
Click here to download the complete URBAN GreenUP Newsletter.