Green cities engaging citizens for sustainability and resilience

This workshop explores how leading green cities can drive impactful citizen engagement to support environmental transitions, contributing to the EURegionsWeek 2026 motto: “Strong regions, strong Europe.” Through concrete examples from cities awarded as European Green Capital and Green Leaf, the session will showcase how participatory approaches can: • Strengthen local democracy and trust; • Improve environmental outcomes; • Enable place-based solutions tailored to local needs; These examples highlight tools such as participatory budgeting, citizen consultations, and co-design processes, illustrating how engagement can be embedded into environmental governance. The cities have been selected based upon their experience and aiming for geographical balance, particularly their situation in peripheral regions. Other cities can be selected following similar criteria to complement or replace members of the panel. The session directly contributes to cohesion policy discussions by: • Demonstrating place-based approaches to citizen engagement • Supporting capacity-building for smaller municipalities • Encouraging transferability of practices across regions • Strengthening multi-level governance and local ownership