Project

Vision

GrowGreen aims to create climate and water resilient, healthy and livable cities by investing in nature-based solutions (NBS). Making nature part of the urban living environment improves quality of life for all citizens and will help business to prosper. High quality green spaces and waterways provide innovative and inspiring solutions to major urban challenges, such as flooding, heat stress, drought, poor air quality and unemployment and will help biodiversity to flourish.

By embedding NBS in long term city planning, development and management, accessible green and blue spaces are a permanent feature of all urban areas around the world, creating harmony between people, economy and the environment, for the benefit of all.

Objectives

Grow Green is a five-year project with the following objectives:

1) Contribute to the evidence base of nature-based solutions in cities for cost-effective, replicable means of increasing urban climate and water resilience, social, environmental and economic benefits, to underpin the development of NBS policies and the global NBS market

2) Develop an easy-to-use replicable approach to support the development and implementation of NBS strategies in cities, aligned with existing city priorities

3) Support the creation of the required conditions to support, drive and enable the implementation of city NBS strategies by awareness raising and capacity building in cities around the world, supporting the development of the required policy framework, business models for investment in NBS and the global market for NBS.

Through NBS demonstration projects and partnerships with a group of cities across Europe and China, GrowGreen will develop a replicable approach to the development and implementation of NBS strategies at city level. A further six cities will be supported in using this approach to produce their own NBS strategies.

Informed by these experiences, GrowGreen will support the creation of the conditions needed for implementation of city NBS strategies globally. This will be done by building awareness and capacity, supporting the development of appropriate policy frameworks at a range of levels, developing viable business models for investment in NBS, and supporting the development of the global market for NBS products and services.