One of the European Green Leaf winners Elsinore (Denmark) launched its title year with a successful opening ceremony on 29 January 2024, incorporating presentations and performances from civil society and renowned artists.
Velenje (Slovenia) also embarked on its historic journey as a Green Leaf city on 14 January 2024, presenting its ambitious plans to citizens, and organizing a number of festivities to commemorate this occasion.
Cedefop is conducting a survey to understand how cities assess the impact of the green transition on jobs and policies related to green skills. Your input will amplify cities' voices among policy makers and inspire greener practices for a Zero Pollution future. The survey takes 15 minutes to complete and can be accessed via the link below.
The JRC has released a new edition of the Guidance on Monitoring of Marine Litter in European Seas, which provides recommendations on how to sample, analyse and record marine litter with the aim to make the data comparable and usable across countries.
The mid-term review of the 8th EAP sheds light on the progress towards achieving the EU's 2030 environmental targets outlined in the Zero Pollution Action Plan. Although most initiatives have been delivered and others are on track to reach their targets, challenges persist.
On 24 and 25 January 2024, the Zero Pollution Stakeholder Platform hosted a workshop on the Zero Pollution Monitoring and Outlook. The workshop focused on the results and lessons learned from the first edition, as well as preparations and the collection of stakeholder inputs for the forthcoming second edition.
The Commission has approved new minimum hygiene standards for materials and products that come into contact with drinking water. These standards will aim to prevent microbial growth and reduce the risk of harmful substances leaching into our water supply.
The Commission has welcomed the provisional agreement on the proposal revising the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive, which will strengthen the protection of human health and the environment towards Zero Pollution from harmful discharges of urban wastewater.
The Commission welcomes the provisional agreement to ban all remaining intentional uses of toxic mercury in the EU. This significant development represents a major step towards Zero Pollution and safeguarding citizens’ health and environmental protection.
The Commission has welcomed the provisional agreement on the revised Ambient Air Quality Directive. With the new law, the 2030 EU air quality standards will be better aligned with the WHO global air quality guidelines and Zero Pollution ambition.
Empowering Sustainable Tourism: Funding opportunities supporting SMEs to obtain the EU Ecolabel certification or EMAS registration.
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MULTICLIMACT is a European research project on urban adaptation and is gathering a consortium of 24 partners to work together towards resilience and efficiency against natural hazards and climate issues. Many of the participants are located in cities which have signed the Green City Accord.
As part of the Belgian presidency of the Council of the European Union, the conference ‘Translating the EU Green Deal to local action’ took place in Brussels on 15 March 2024, which had the aim of showing how to achieve the EU Green Deal’s objectives.
Valencia, our Green Capital this year, has a long tradition of good water management. A Euronews episode on water featured the city last year in it’s first edition of their TV show “The Road to Green” – we encourage you to watch other episodes with interesting urban development ideas.
On 6 February 2024, the European Commission (DG Environment) hosted a webinar about low noise road surfaces to disseminate information to local authorities and relevant stakeholders on how to use them efficiently.
On 31 January 2024, an online workshop on ‘Donut Economics’ was held, focusing on innovative revenue models that cities can employ to implement this concept.
Tallinn ended its title year as the European Green Capital on a very high note with its participation at COP28, the UN Climate Change Conference at the United Arab Emirates.
Tallinn ended its title year as the European Green Capital on a very high note with its participation at COP28, the UN Climate Change Conference at the United Arab Emirates.
