GoGreenRoutes

Resilient Optimal Urban natural, Technological and Environmental Solutions

Overview and Objectives

Making nature healthy again is key to our physical and mental well-being. GoGreenRoutes is a €10.5m EU-funded project sowing the seeds for increased nature-connectedness across Europe, Latin America and China. Its multidisciplinary consortium of 40 organisations is pairing participatory approaches and citizen science with Big Data analyses and digital innovation to co-create “Urban Well-being Labs” in six “Cultivating Cities”: Burgas (Bulgaria), Lahti (Finland), Limerick (Ireland), Tallinn (Estonia), Umeå (Sweden) and Versailles (France).These pioneering cities are implementing “nature-based solutions” such as green corridors, linear parks, pocket parks and shared walkways to enhance the physical and mental health of their urban residents. By maximising the available public space people can move around the city more actively, enjoy their free time and interact with others, whilst there is also room for restoring ecologically valuable spaces.

The objective of GoGreenRoutes is to position European cities as world ambassadors of urban sustainability. Our inspirational approach shifts the focus of NBS towards the co-benefits to multidimensional health-termed 360-Health. GoGreenRoutes transdisciplinary consortium will pioneer a unique approach augmenting NBS, urban design with the goal of fostering a positive human-nature relationship, flourishing nature connectedness and promoting citizen engagement through digital, educational and behavioural innovation. GoGreenRoutes components focus on nature-based enterprise (GROW), sustainable physical activity (MOVE), digital, cultural (FEEL) and knowledge innovation (KNOW). GoGreenRoutes fosters mental health and well-being by optimising human-nature interactions for all citizens.

Activities/Outputs

GoGreenRoutes’ multidisciplinary consortium of 40 organisations is exploring the nexus between nature, technology and society while implementing nature-based solutions that enhance the physical and mental health of residents in six Cultivating Cities: Burgas, Lahti, Limerick, Tallinn, Umeå and Versailles.

The project will develop a set of environmental quality indicators and exchange lessons-learnt with a group of seed cities (Munich, in Germany, the Region of Murcia, in Spain, and Gzira, in Malta) and a cross-pollination network (Mexico City, in Mexico, Beijing, in China, and Tbilisi, in Georgia), who represent large-scale opportunities for the implementation of nature-based solutions.

ICEP Europe is the work package lead on Work Package 7 within the GoGreen Routes project, which involves the development of a new monitoring tool for Urban Nature Connectedness and the development of a digital mobile application designed to promote psychological resilience and nature connectedness amongst the inhabitants of the project’s six cultivating cities. The ICEP Europe website also hosts the GoGreenRoutes Citizen Science Training Programme. To learn more, access the link provided in the tab on the right-hand side.

Impact

GOGREEN ROUTES will contribute to the paradigm shift enshrined in the New Urban Agenda by integrating a focus on a proactive, preventive and positive approach termed 360-Health. The project will create tools to empower citizens to engage in co-creation of optimal healthy environments to meet their individual, community, and city level goals. The projects preventative approach focuses not on threats from environmental hazards, urbanisation, etc., but on positive consequences of nature contact and the impact on health, mental health and well-being.

The project’s expected impacts are:

High quality, multifunctional, public spaces able to integrate digital, social, cultural and nature-based innovation to enhance health and well-being, while ensuring the right to the city.
European cities being world ambassadors of sustainable lifestyles, providing universal access to greener, safe, inclusive and accessible public spaces, also accounting for the gender dimension.
Participatory approaches in re-designing and transforming public spaces to increase health and well-being in cities through innovative public-private-people partnerships (PPPPs).
More comprehensive assessment of the sustainability and resilience of cities through the development of health and well-being indicators.
Establishing innovative monitoring systems to measure effects (both positive and negative) and capture the multiple co-benefits created by nature-based solutions in terms of health and well-being.