Ten cities with populations over 100,000 will be competing for the European Green Capital Award 2025: Brasov (Romania), Brescia (Italy), Cagliari (Italy), Graz (Austria), Guimarães (Portugal), Logroño (Spain), Novara (Italy), Poznań (Poland), Rzeszow (Poland), and Vilnius (Lithuania).
Four smaller cities (population between 20,000 -100,000), will be competing for the European Green Leaf Award 2025: Riba-Roja de Turia (Spain), Rivas Vaciamadrid (Spain), Treviso (Italy), and Viladecans (Spain).
Next steps
In the coming weeks, in the first stage, a panel of seven independent experts will assess each application on 7 environmental indicators. Based on the experts’ technical assessment, the Commission will announce a shortlist of finalist cities during the summer of 2023.
In the second stage, the finalists will present a summary of how they govern their green transition and their pitches in front of an international jury panel chaired by the European Commission. Their presentations should include an overall strategy, vision, and commitment to sustainability as well as their planned communication strategy to all stakeholders, especially their citizens and how they count on inspiring other cities.
The jury panel will take place on 4-5 October and the winners will be announced on 5 October 2023 at a festive ceremony in Tallinn, the current European Green Capital.
The European Green Capital winner will receive a €600,000 financial prize to implement key actions across six areas: waste, water, air quality, noise, biodiversity, and soil. The European Green Leaf will be awarded to one or two cities, each of which receives a financial prize of €200,000.
The winners will join the 15 already awarded cities in the Green Capital category (since 2010) and 15 in the Green Leaf category
We invite you to follow the social media accounts of the Awards to discover which cities are going to be the 2025 EU Green Capital and EU Green Leaf winners.
What are the benefits
Being a European Green Capital or a European Green Leaf brings many benefits long after the designated ‘winner’ year ends. Winners get attention on a European or international scale and attract investments and tourism. Greener cities cope better in times of climate change and biodiversity crisis.
Frontrunner cities create a spirit of optimism in their city, create a better quality of life for their citizens and thus get public support, which attracts more investors from private business but also national funding.
Details
- Publication date
- 26 May 2023
- Author
- Directorate-General for Environment
