Resilience by design

They’re also responsible for 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), so reducing their impact and boosting resilience is crucial.

Against this panorama, GreenInCities emerges as a groundbreaking initiative, blending nature-based solutions with advanced technology to create healthier, more resilient urban spaces. 

Supported by the European Union’s Climate and Cities Missions, this ambitious project goes beyond conventional urban planning by fusing data-driven innovation with insights from neuroscience. The goal is to create cities that adapt to the needs of both people and nature, building a more sustainable and inclusive future.

We caught up with Déborah Camañes from Ideas for Change and Communications Project Manager for the GreenInCities Consortium, to find out more. 

We take an adaptive approach to climate challenges across Europe, with 11 diverse cities acting as pilot projects. These five 'leader' cities – Barcelona (Spain), Prato (Italy), Athens (Greece), Helsinki (Finland), and Nova Gorica (Slovenia) – are paving the way, testing and refining GreenInCities strategies. 

For example, we’re exploring solutions like setting up vertical food farms, creating vegetated building facades and building playgrounds with eco-friendly materials, among many other initiatives, like rewilding urban areas and implementing decentralised, citizen-led decision-making and governance. 

Then we have six 'follower' cities, including Reykjavik (Iceland), Cork (Ireland), Matosinhos (Portugal), Pécs (Hungary), Birstonas (Lithuania) and Hersonissos (Greece). These six adapt these innovations to their unique contexts. Central to these efforts is an inclusive methodology that engages local voices, particularly those of vulnerable groups, and even non-human 'stakeholders,' like plants and animals, making urban planning a truly participatory and accessible process.

By uniting nature’s wisdom with cutting-edge technology, GreenInCities offers a vision of cities that actively promote climate adaptation and resilience, ensuring that green, vibrant urban spaces are accessible to all forms of life.

We support the European Green Deal and SDGs by focusing on climate resilience, biodiversity, and sustainable urban regeneration. Through nature-based solutions (NbS) like those mentioned, we promote cleaner, greener cities that align with the Green Deal’s priorities of reducing pollution and protecting nature.

By involving communities in planning and decision-making, we’re also advancing the SDGs, particularly those related to health, sustainable cities and climate action. This collaborative approach helps cities achieve local sustainability goals while contributing to broader EU climate and regeneration targets.

We promote the health and wellbeing of people and nature by creating urban spaces that benefit both. Nature-based solutions like urban meadows and green building facades improve air quality, reduce heat and support mental wellbeing for residents. They also provide much-needed habitats and green corridors to protect and promote urban wildlife. 

Our approach to urban greening through Nature-based Solutions offers numerous benefits, including improved quality of life, enhanced biodiversity, and increased climate resilience. We focus on creating inclusive green spaces that cater to everyone, especially vulnerable groups often overlooked in urban planning. 

The project actively involves local communities, especially vulnerable groups, in designing these spaces, making them inclusive and accessible. This ensures that cities become healthier and more balanced places for people and nature to thrive together.

Balancing the needs of people and wildlife can present challenges, such as potential conflicts between nature conservation and urban development. 

We address these issues through careful planning and community involvement and we have an Inclusion Plan to ensure inclusivity, especially for vulnerable groups and residents in deprived areas. We're also committed to equitably distributing the benefits of urban greening. This involves understanding each area's unique challenges and potential inequalities.

Citizen science is crucial to our co-creation process. We actively engage residents in data-gathering activities like mapping green spaces and monitoring air quality. This provides valuable insights for project decisions and empowers communities to shape their urban environments, so we involve local voices right from the start and throughout the process.

New technologies are central to our approach, helping us understand and transform urban spaces in ways that directly benefit communities and the environment. 

We’re using tools like drones and satellite NDVI mapping to assess the health of local vegetation. We also have a Heatwave Potential Risk Index to pinpoint areas most affected by extreme heat. These insights allow us to tailor green solutions – like shaded corridors or cooling green spaces – where they’re needed most.

For community engagement, we’re introducing tools like augmented reality (AR) to help residents visualise proposed green spaces before they’re built, as the one proposed by FORTH  that simulates the post-intervention site, by superimposing 3D architectural models of the planned interventions onto the real world. This will allow users to visualise the site following the planned interventions, and to provide feedback that will inform the designs and planned interventions. 

We also use environmental neuroscience tools, like the Neurourbanism Assessment (NUA) developed by Neurolandscape, to evaluate how green spaces impact mental wellbeing, ensuring our designs promote both physical and mental health. By combining these technologies, we’re creating data-driven, responsive spaces that support climate resilience and community wellbeing. 

Like I said, our data-driven approach includes neuroscience tools to understand how green spaces can support mental health and wellbeing. 

By studying how different urban environments affect stress and mood, we can design green areas that promote relaxation and resilience. We combine this with environmental data – like air quality and temperature – and community feedback from apps and workshops, to create spaces that genuinely meet both physical and mental health needs.

This mix of neuroscience insights, environmental data and resident input gives policymakers a rounded, evidence-based foundation to make urban greening decisions that benefit people’s wellbeing.

We expect our project will inspire policies that focus on practical, data-backed urban greening strategies to handle climate challenges. 

For instance, based on our data on heat and air quality, we’ll likely recommend policies that prioritise planting urban forests and installing green roofs in areas where they’ll have the most impact. So, cooling down hotspots and improving air quality in neighbourhoods that need it most. 

As an example, we have the San Paolo complex, a sports facility situated in Prato with a diverse ethnic and socio-cultural ecosystem. With the project we intend to boost policies that focus on the design of open spaces, slow mobility and create rest areas that encourage socialisation and at the same mitigate the heat island effect.

Our research on mental health impacts will also support policies that require green spaces to be designed with the community’s wellbeing in mind, incorporating quiet areas, sensory gardens or shaded zones to reduce stress and encourage relaxation. 

For biodiversity, we’re seeing potential for policies that require  NbS, like natural meadows, that support local wildlife while helping cities adapt to climate extremes like flooding. These recommendations would not only help cities handle climate issues more sustainably but also create green spaces that improve day-to-day life for residents.

We give municipalities a practical roadmap for bringing  NbS into urban planning. It starts with a deep dive into each city’s unique environmental and social needs, helping identify where green projects like rain gardens or climate shelters can make the biggest difference.

From there, we guide cities through a hands-on, community-focused planning phase. Residents, including vulnerable groups, get involved in designing these spaces, making sure they’re not just tackling climate issues but also creating places the community values and feels connected to.

Once the plan is set, cities receive support to bring these ideas to life, with flexible solutions tailored to local climates and urban layouts. For instance, we provide a clear path to turn these ideas into reality by using Ideas For Change’s Pentagrowth methodology. This means working closely with local stakeholders through collaborative workshops at pilot sites to come up with creative and practical business strategies inspired by the project’s results. 

Also, built-in monitoring and evaluation mean cities can track how well these green spaces are working — both environmentally and socially — and make adjustments to keep maximising benefits over the long term.

To make our solutions adaptable for cities across Europe, we focus on proving real impact, using open-source resources and providing practical guides that cities can easily follow. 

By partnering with local champions and tailoring our messaging to resonate with urban challenges, we’re creating a strong support network and roadmap that help cities see how these solutions can transform their own communities.

To measure our impact, we’ll closely monitor environmental changes like improved air quality, cooler temperatures, and richer biodiversity. Using real-time data from sensors, we can see how well these green spaces are working.

We’re equally focused on listening to the community. Surveys and feedback sessions will help us understand if these spaces are making a real difference in people’s lives, especially for those who need them most.

On the policy front, our success will show in how local authorities use our findings. If our data starts to shape urban planning or lead to new policies for green spaces, we’ll know we’re making a lasting impact.

One of the highlights from our recent consortium meeting in Cork was seeing the diverse strategies each pilot city is using to engage their communities in green space planning. 

For instance, Cork showcased its work on accessible green corridors, sharing how they’re integrating these spaces to serve both environmental goals and local wellbeing. The team also shared insights into balancing climate adaptation with social needs — a recurring theme across all pilot cities.

This meeting reinforced that while every city has its own approach, the shared goal of creating inclusive, resilient green spaces keeps us aligned. The local successes and challenges shared at this gathering help us refine our strategies, making GreenInCities stronger as a whole.