"Green cities - fit for life"
History of the Award
The aim of the award is to support and motivate European cities to improve their environment by awarding those that are making active and innovative efforts to achieve a more sustainable and healthy environment. These cities are already rewarded through the progress they make, but the European Green Capital award is intended to formally recognise their work and hopefully spur cities on to commit themselves to further environmental initiatives to become ‘Green Cities – Fit For Life’.
The European Green Capital award is the outcome of an initiative taken by cities with a green vision and the concept was devised at a meeting in Tallinn, Estonia, held on 15 May 2006, on the initiative of Tallinn’s former mayor, Mr Jüri Ratas.
Once a year as of 2010 a European city will be awarded the title of European Green Capital by a panel of environmental experts. The experts award the title to a European city that has successfully introduced concrete and innovative improvements to its urban environment.
Children leaping into the harbour bath at Islands Brygge – Sharing Copenhagen 2014 #sharingcph
Previous and future winners of the award include:
- 2010 – Stockholm, Sweeden
- 2011 – Hamburg, Germany
- 2012 – Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain
- 2013 – Nantes, France
- 2014 – Copenhagen, Denmark
- 2015 – Bristol, UK
- 2016 – Ljubljana, Slovenia
- 2017 – Essen, Germany
Why Bristol?
On the third attempt, Bristol was awarded 2015 Green Capital status as a city that can:
- Demonstrate a well-established record of achieving high environmental standards
- Commit to ongoing and ambitious goals for further environmental improvement and sustainable development
- Be a role model – part of an ever growing group of cities that aim to inspire and promote best practices to all European cities.
The award was made based on a technical assessment and independent evaluation, based on a bid that was submitted by Bristol City Council and Bristol Green Capital Partnership, whose members led the campaign in Bristol to ‘Back the Bid!’
You can read the bid in full here.
Bristol 2015 – In it for Good
Read the Citywide Review of Bristol’s year as European Green Capital here
Visit the Bristol 2015 website for events, news and stories from the year
Bristol’s year as European Green Capital was a a city-wide initiative with many organisations involved, and to facilitate this a new company was established – Bristol 2015 Ltd.
Bristol 2015 Ltd worked closely with Bristol City Council, the Bristol Green Capital Partnership and directly with UK, EU and international partners who included educational and arts and cultural institutions, business networks, visitor and tourism bodies and many more.
As a short term company with an independent board, Bristol 2015 raised funds, planned and delivered a programme with key strategic partners in the city – providing a platform for the year to raise the profile of the existing work and innovation in the city.
Bristol Green Capital Partnership CIC and many of our members were pleased to be able to work closely with the team at Bristol 2015 to ensure partnership members and organisations from across the whole city played an active leadership role in the delivery of the Bristol 2015 European Green Capital Programme.
Bristol Green Capital Partnership CIC was supported by Bristol 2015 Ltd. in 2014/2015 to become a legacy organisation for Green Capital, and announced a new future for the independent Community Interest Company in January 2016 that can ensure civic leadership for the city beyond 2015.
