The Estonia capital Tallinn was announced as the European Green Capital 2023 at an awards event in Finland this evening.
On a mission to make the city a sustainability powerhouse, Tallinn’s vision to deliver actions that support the UN Sustainable Development Goals, along with its strong climate-neutral roadmap, which commits it to a 40% reduction in emissions by 2030 – in advance of hitting net zero by 2050, were among the reasons it won the title and €600k to invest in green solutions. Tallinn follows in the footsteps of previous winners including Stockholm, Hamburg, Oslo, and Lisbon.
“Since the beginning of this year, Tallinn has been leading the European Network of Sustainable Cities, which aims to support the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals in cities. In addition, Tallinn has started to develop a dashboard which will enable it to monitor the fulfilment of the city’s development goals in the future,” the Tallinn green capital web page says.
Lahti, the current European Green Capital, hosted tonight’s event, with the city’s symphony orchestra, the world’s first ever carbon neutral orchestra, entertaining the audience. The night also saw the announcement of the Green Leaf award winners, which goes to smaller cities with populations under 100,000, with Valongo, in Portugal, and Winterswijk, in the Netherlands, named the 2022 winners – both will receive €200k.
The passion of European cities to build sustainable environments and economies reflects the continent’s commitment to lead the world by becoming the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. Earlier this year the European Parliament also announced its ‘fit for 55’ legislation, a ‘package of proposals to make the EU’s climate, energy, land use, transport and taxation policies fit for reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030’.
