ICLEI Europe is a key partner in the new SHARED GREEN DEAL project that involves local communities across Europe to support the objectives of the European Green Deal. A recent focus on tackling climate change has centred on green technology development. However, this approach also needs people! In neighbourhoods across Europe, the SHARED GREEN DEAL will use 24 separate socially-focused learning-by-doing exercises (or ‘experiments’) to examine how organisations and individuals can work together to make our daily lives more sustainable. ICLEI Europe along with 22 partners across Europe will examine the role Social Sciences and Humanities can play in helping nations, cities, and neighbourhoods reduce their carbon emissions as part of the European Green Deal programme.

"When it comes down to it, modern environmental problems are really social problems. How we travel, eat, heat our homes etc. - the choices we make as individuals and communities - will all dictate whether the European Union is able to live within the limits and aspirations set out in the Green Deal. But can institutions support sustainability and push the need for change, so that we as individuals can play our own part? ICLEI will help find out and change practice over the next five years. We’re particularly excited about working with schools in the context of solving their future mobility challenges,” says Reggie Tricker, Senior Officer for Sustainable Mobility in ICLEI Europe’s Governance and Social Innovation Team.

The project will work directly with families in fuel poverty, as well as with schools, housing associations, and businesses. Skill-sharing workshops, toolkits, and training videos will be developed which focus on sharing sustainability know-how between generations. A special opportunity to be involved in SHARED GREEN DEAL targeted at local governments and local community organisations is set to be opened later this year, offering grants to deliver local experiments in support of the European Green Deal. ICLEI Europe supports this process and more information will be shared through ICLEI’s and SHARED GREEN DEAL’s newsletters.

The European Green Deal pledges that no person or place is left behind during the transition to a low carbon society, and diversity and inclusivity are at the heart of SHARED GREEN DEAL. This will ensure disadvantaged and vulnerable social groups are supported during this transition. We invite all ICLEI Members to follow the project and to reach out for further information.

Learn more about SHARED GREEN DEAL here.