Ecology, Energy, Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Forum, Good for Business

"Tallinn competed with 18 other cities and made it to the finals, or the top four, with two French cities and one Italian city this time," Tallinn's Deputy Mayor Kalle Klandorf said on Wednesday, adding that this was the highest place achieved by Tallinn in the past three years. 

The selection of a city awarded with the title of European Green Capital is assessed on the basis of twelve environmental indicators: mitigation of climate change, adaptation to climate change, sustainable urban mobility, sustainable land use, nature and biodiversity, air quality, noise, waste, water, green growth and eco-innovation, energy performance, and governance.

Source: https://ec.europa.eu/

The information supplied by each city is assessed by a panel of internationally acknowledged experts. This includes qualitative evaluations and a peer review of each application based on the 12 indicators. The expert panel determines the shortlist of cities that enter into the final stage of the competition.

"Tallinn performed very successfully on many indicators. Tallinn ranks second in Europe for noise levels, for instance, and third for the quality of water. The biggest downside was waste management, as Tallinn was criticized for not having managed to introduce sorting of waste quite conclusively to date," Klandorf said.

Next, the shortlisted cities must present to the jury a plan detailing their contribution to sustainable development. The decision about the bearer of the title in 2022 will be made by the European Commission in October. The title comes with a cash prize of 350,000 euros.

"We hope to win this title, and if we don't succeed, we will have to try again in the future," the deputy mayor added. 

The European Green Capital 2020 is Lisbon and the European Green Capital 2021 is Lahti in Finland.