ICLEI Members have recently been recognised as leaders and pioneers of solutions and best practices across sustainability fields.
The presitgious European Greef Leaf Award 2021 was rewarded to two cities, including Lappeenranta (Finland). The city was recognised for its commitment to developing into a model green city and ranked highly in all the award indicators. It is home to a world-class research and innovation university which contributes to the city in areas such as clean energy research, sustainability, circular economy and water technology. Guided by the Lappeenranta 2033 Strategy, it was the world’s first city to start solely using EKOenergy-certified renewable electricity.
At the Mannheim2020 conference, Katowice (Poland) was announced as the winner of the 2020 Transformative Action Award. The award recognises “transformative actions” that make use of the 15 pathways outlined in the Basque Declaration to achieve the socio-cultural, socio-economic and technological transformation needed to forge a more sustainable society. Katowice won the award for using apps and campaigns to encourage residents to help make the city more sustainable. One such app enables residents to suggest places for new trees to be planted, while another allows residents to identify problems – ranging from the need for new traffic signs, to sidewalk maintenance – they would like the city to address. Through this work, the city has planted more than 600 trees, repaired 11,000 infrastructural defects across the city, sowed 20,000m2 of meadows, and cleaned 30ha of public space, collecting 15 containers of rubbish.
Meanwhile, Haarlem (the Netherlands) joined one other municipality and two public agencies as the winners of this year's edition of the prestigious Procura+ sustainable procurement awards. Haarlem won Procurement Initiative of the Year for their cooperative approach to supplier management to achieve a circular and sustainable city. The city has worked closely with public maintenance suppliers to create trust partnerships where suppliers ensure that social and sustainability goals are met, while also giving them the freedom to innovate in how they deliver their services.
Trade is a critical component in any cities efforts in the field of sustainable consumption. The City of Malmö (Sweden)'s work in this area led them to win the EU Cities for Fair and Ethical Trade Award 2021. Malmö won the award for its holistic approach to integrating fair and ethical trade into its multicultural community of consumers, businesses, and civil society, innovative policies and a forward-looking strategy. As part of their prize, Malmö will gain technical assistance to implement a development project proposed as part of their winning bid. The European Commission’s Directorate General for Trade will provide €100,000 to help implement the project. ICLEI Members Bremen (Germany), and Gothenburg (Sweden) were also awarded Special Mentions for their achievements and outstanding efforts concerning fair and ethical trade.
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