Green infrastructure has huge benefits to cities, their citizens and the local economy. But how can cities keep expanding and maintaining green infrastructure in the face of shrinking budgets? At the second GREEN SURGE Stakeholder Dialogue Forum, the Greater London Authority (UK) will show how private investment is funding green corridors in London’s Wild West End and how public-private cooperation is improving central business districts with additional green infrastructure. The Parkstad-Limburg Region (Netherlands) and Strasbourg (France) will provide contrasting examples of public partnering up with private for a greener urban region. Further insights will be contributed by Vantaa (Finland).

This free event will bring together urban green infrastructure practitioners, researchers and private sector stakeholders to explore local government strategies and activities in collaboration with the private sector to lead urban development down a greener path.

This Stakeholder Dialogue Forum is the second in a series of these events, organised by the EU-funded GREEN SURGE project. At the first Stakeholder Dialogue Forum in Brussels in October 2015, urban green infrastructure practitioners from Edinburgh, Utrecht, Milan and Berlin shared the strategies and solutions they employed for and with citizens to change their cities for the greener. GREEN SURGE researchers complemented the case studies with research insights into citizen engagement, multifunctionality and social inclusion in urban GI planning.

The second Stakeholder Dialogue Forum will be held in Bizkaia Aretoa, Bilbao (Spain) from 14:00 to 18:00 on 26 April 2016. It is free of charge and coffee and snacks will be provided. The Forum is a pre-event to the 8th European Conference on Sustainable Cities & Towns. While the Forum is free of charge, participants can also join the ECSCT Conference for a reduced registration fee. Please register for the Stakeholder Dialogue Forum via the online registration form. Once registered, you can register for the ECSCT conference for a reduced registration fee. Participants are welcome to join the evening reception on Tuesday 26 April as part of the main conference programme.

For further information, please contact ICLEI via greensurge@iclei.org or visit the GREEN SURGE website.