The Cities of Valencia, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Wroclaw, Lodz and Ghent have joined forces with ICLEI Europe to implement the Fair Local Green Deals Project. The project puts participation at its core, aiming to find a unique tailored approach for involving citizens and other local stakeholders in each of its pilot cities with special attention to the inclusion of minorities and marginalised groups. Directly involving these groups in local transformation processes will help to promote fairness, equity and sustainability as a mind-set and foster ownership of the Local Green Deals among citizens.

Local Green Deals are the local response to the European Green Deal. They aim at turning climate and environmental challenges into opportunities. However, the European Green Deal is not immediately applicable at the local level, it needs to be adapted to the local context. This adaptation can be more than a top-down effort. The process should be used to include and engage a city’s residents and empower them as co-creators of a Local Green Deal that matches their interests, priorities and the local frameworks.

After assessing the status quo and co-designing a Local Green Deal framework in each city, the project accompanies the implementation alongside city authorities and citizens. Finally local stakeholders are also involved in the evaluation of the project. Taking into account citizens’ opinion is fundamental to making the LGD process democratic and capable of sustaining, adjusting and innovating itself based on citizens’ needs.

The pilot cities in the project will share their experiences and approaches with each other as well as third cities, enabling them to increase and improve participation of their citizens.

The projct is coordinated by ICLEI Europe and will run until 2024.