Green Cities for a Sustai­na­ble Euro­pe


ENA ‑the Euro­pean Nur­serys­tock Asso­ci­a­ti­on- starts the “Green Cities for a Sustai­na­ble Euro­pe” pro­mo­ti­on cam­paign in seven coun­tries.
ENA – the Euro­pean Nur­serys­tock Asso­ci­a­ti­on – sig­ned a Grant Agree­ment with CHAFEA (Con­su­mers, Health, Agri­cul­tu­re and Food Exe­cu­ti­ve Agen­cy) of the Euro­pean Com­mis­si­on to launch a pro­mo­ti­on cam­paign with the slo­gan “Green Cities for a sustai­na­ble Euro­pe”.
The Green Cities cam­paign has a total bud­get of €2.1 mil­li­on, that will be finan­ced with aid from the Euro­pean Union up to the 80% and will run from now until the end of 2020.
Seven of the ENA mem­bers are wor­king together on this ini­ti­a­ti­ve and fun­ding it: AVBSVLAM
from Bel­gi­um, BAOPN from Bul­ga­ria, Dans­ke Plan­tes­ko­ler from Den­mark, BdB from Ger­ma­ny, Val’hor from Fran­ce, HTA from the UK and Anthos-LTO-‘De Groe­ne Stad’ from the Nether­lands.
The team has held a mee­ting in Essen (Ger­ma­ny) on Janu­a­ry 25th, 2018, to coo­r­di­na­te the final details of the first acti­vi­ties
to be exe­cu­ted this year. The pro­ject ‘Green cities for a sustai­na­ble Euro­pe’ is a B2B pro­mo­ti­on cam­paign, tar­ge­ted at pro­fes­si­o­nals that play a deci­si­ve role in city
plan­ning, lands­ca­pe plan­ning and is not focu­sed on the mass mar­ket. The pro­ject will give tools and tech­ni­cal back­ground for deci­si­on makers and poli­ti­cians to com­mu­ni­ca­te this mes­sa­ge of green cities for a sustai­na­ble Euro­pe to the citi­zens they work for. The main method will be a series of con­gres­ses, semi­nars and B2B mee­tings, an exten­ded web­si­te and public rela­ti­ons. The main goal of the Green Cities cam­paign is to increa­se awa­re­ness of the many bene­fits of using live plants in the cities, towns and vil­la­ges, for both the citi­zens and the envi­ron­ment.
Leon Smet (Anthos, the Nether­lands), Chair­man of the Pro­mo­ti­on Wor­king Group of ENA, says: “Loo­king at urban devel­op­ment and cli­ma­te chan­ge,
the­re is a sen­ti­ment that urges for posi­ti­ve chan­ge within cities. The Green City offers solu­ti­ons that con­tri­bu­te to peo­p­le living and wor­king in cities. Joi­ning for­ces within Euro­pe through a joint ENA cam­paign ena­bles us to reach a vast amount of sta­ke­hol­ders, about the impor­tan­ce of
plants, trees but also flo­wer bulbs in urban are­as. The­re is a gro­wing amount of sci­en­ti­fic lite­ra­tu­re that shows proof that ‘green’ con­tri­bu­tes to cli­ma­te, wel­l­being and air qua­li­ty.
The Green City will bring this mes­sa­ge across Euro­pe.” Hen­ning Roed, chair­man of Dans­ke Plan­tes­ko­ler (Danish Nur­se­ries), says “We see the
Green City pro­mo­ti­on pro­ject as a gre­at oppor­tu­ni­ty to com­mu­ni­ca­te all the know­led­ge about the posi­ti­ve impact that plants and natu­re bring to peo­p­le espe­ci­al­ly in Urban are­as. We feel the timing is right to set the green city on the agen­da both poli­ti­cal and for other deci­si­on makers. As the­re is an ongo­ing deba­te about green city and sustai­na­bi­li­ty.”
Eli­as De Boeck, the Nur­sery Stock Pro­mo­ti­on Mana­ger at VLAM (Bel­gi­um), points out that “the Euro­pean appro­val of the Green Cities pro­ject will make it pos­si­ble to rai­se awa­re­ness of cli­ma­te chan­ge and green envi­ron­ment, espe­ci­al­ly in the crow­ded Bel­gi­an cities. It helps
us to bring the Bel­gi­an tree nur­sery pro­ducts to the atten­ti­on of tar­get groups who have a big­ger influ­en­ce on the envi­ron­ment.”
“We are deligh­ted to have achie­ved this grant. It will real­ly help us pro­mo­te plants for the envi­ron­men­tal bene­fits which they pro­vi­de. By rai­sing the pro­fi­le of living green infra­struc­tu­re we hope to open up new mar­kets for our mem­bers and help deli­ver the UK Government’s 25-year envi­ron­ment plan aims”, says Raoul Cur­tis-Machin, HTA Direc­tor of Hor­ti­cul­tu­re (Uni­ted King­dom)
“On behalf of the French nur­sery and lands­ca­pe pro­fes­si­o­nals, we are hap­py and proud to car­ry the mes­sa­ge of Euro­pe for a gree­ner, healt­hier, more sustai­na­ble city for Euro­pean citi­zens. Fran­ce has been wor­king for seve­r­al years as part of the Cité Ver­te pro­gram, and today, together, we will be more con­vin­cing to say that the trees and plants are essen­ti­al to life!”, says Jean-Marc Vas­se, Gene­ral Dele­ga­te of VAL’HOR (Fran­ce).
“The com­plexi­ty of this topic needs nati­o­nal and inter­na­ti­o­nal net­works to sen­si­ti­ze deci­si­on makers throug­hout the Euro­pean com­mu­nes and to make them able to look after sustai­na­ble Green Cities in the next deca­des”, says Mar­kus Guhl, Gene­ral Mana­ger of BdB (Ger­ma­ny).
“Having seven coun­tries wor­king together in a Euro­pean pro­mo­ti­on cam­paign is a gre­at suc­cess for the Euro­pean nur­sery stock sec­tor”, sta­tes Josep M. Pagès, Secre­ta­ry Gene­ral of ENA, the Euro­pean Nur­serys­tock Asso­ci­a­ti­on.