What does a bus station, a park or a tunnel say about equality and gender issues? The Gendered Landscape allows visitors to travel through the city of Umeå, a municipality that has worked broadly with issues of gender equality for a long time. The method exemplifies successful changes and landmarks in the city and illuminates remaining issues and challenges in relation to the goals for gender equality. The purpose is also to underline the importance of gender in society and to try to show some results of long term work within Umeå municipality.

The Baratze Parkea Sarea Network (‘Baratze’ means vegetable garden) brings together vegetable gardens from the various towns and cities in Gipuzkoa (Spain?), offering the public somewhere local to engage in organic horticulture for self-consumption, with the support of the community and advice from experts.

A leader in Europe?

This project also manages to improve social harmony and cohesion, integrate disadvantaged groups, promote cultural and linguistic diversity, create new green spaces integrated into the urban ecosystem, foster an intergenerational exchange and promote active leisure and respect for the natural environment.

With the help of the PajoPower cooperative, we are substituting the current street lighting along the four major access roads to the city of Halle with more energy-efficient LED lamps. The up-front investments were made by the Pajopower associates, and the city of Halle will reimburse PajoPower using portions of the monthly savings in energy costs.  

In order to reconcile the adaptation, mitigation and sustainable development of the Basque Territory, the Basque Government developed The Climate Change Strategy of the Basque Country - KLIMA 2050, with a long-term horizon and two main objectives:

• To reduce GHG emissions in the Basque Country by at least 40% by 2030 and by at least 80% by 2050 with respect to 2005, including 40% renewable energy consumption 2050.
• To ensure the resilience of the Basque territory to climate change.

9 Goals and a total of 24 Lines of Action have been defined to achieve the mitigation, adaptation and renewable energy.

The Zorrozaurre project is the latest major urban regeneration operation in Bilbao. It represents a sustainable and integral plan to recover a degraded space and convert it into a new district of Bilbao. The district will be easy to reach, with affordable housing, areas for environmentally-friendly businesses, and cultural and social facilities.

San Sebastián is a medium-sized city with more than 186,000 inhabitants. It is a tertiary, tourist city, eminently commercial, with strong emphasis on services and congresses. In recent years, San Sebastián has moved into a leading position among European cities, largely because of its commitment to science, technology, sustainable development and culture. Its designation as European Capital of Culture in 2016 confirms this pledge.

For the last 25 years, the city has been enforcing a strong integrated mobility policy in favour of pedestrians, bicycles and public transport. This includes promoting active modes of transport, including the introduction of innovative measures, as well as integrated strategies to increase the number of people walking, cycling and using public transport, while simultaneously reducing the use of cars. The city has also worked to create more people-friendly spaces. These measures have a significant impact on the policy fields of energy, transport, and environmental sustainability. By reducing on-street parking and returning public space to the people, the city is an even more attractive place to be.

The Network for Sustainable Business Development is a forum where local companies' sustainability efforts are further developed. The aim of the network is to strengthen the participating companies’ competitive advantages through targeted efforts towards sustainability. The network is a private- public cooperation between the municipalities in Northern Denmark, local business bureaus, Energi Nord, Aalborg University and private companies.

Vitoria-Gasteiz has embarked on a process to design and implement an Urban Green Infrastructure Plan. This process aims to explore the usefulness of different urban green infrastructure solutions in mitigating climate change and promoting adaptation in the city, and will involve the study of ecosystem services, the concept of multifunctionality and its associated benefits. The outcomes are expected to lead to a better understanding of the city’s urban dynamics and a better appraisal of the potential to integrate such measures into land use planning.