Grenoble is the European Green Capital 2022
Environment — di Andrea Barolini
On Thursday 8 October, the European Commission jury designated Grenoble as European Green Capital for 2022. Here are the reasons why.
Grenoble is the European Green Capital 2022
On Thursday 8 October, the European Commission jury designated Grenoble as European Green Capital for 2022. Here are the reasons why.
Grenoble will be the European Green Capital for 2022. Having reached the final alongside Dijon, Tallinn and Turin, the French city located in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region was selected on the evening of Thursday 8 October. The European Commission experts took into account twelve indicators: in five cases Grenoble came first and in six cases second.
🔵🇪🇺🇫🇷 🟢 Grenoble élue Capitale Verte de l'Europe pour 2022 ! Au cœur des Alpes, le climat devient fou 2x plus vite. Ensemble, amplifions les transitions. Grenoble est fière de devenir l'ambassadrice française et européenne des transitions. En avant ! ✊✊ #egca2022
The indicators used to choose the European Green Capital
The jury examined in particular the policies adopted on improving air quality, water resources, waste management, mobility, governance, adaptation and mitigation of climate change, protection of biodiversity, and the capacity to ensure sustainable economic growth.
For the city led by green mayor Eric Piolle, this represents an enormous success, not only from a political standpoint. Beyond the material reward – 350,000 euros – the spotlight will now remain on Grenoble for a long time to come.
"We are extremely proud," the mayor commented. "We will make the title of European Green Capital a foundation for coming together and accelerating the transition. We will make ourselves proactive and demanding ambassadors. Our goal is to share a desirable future. In the recent past we have had to face serious crises, and most of them are attributable to a lack of respect for nature."
Green mayor Eric Piolle has led Grenoble since 2014
Eric Piolle, a member of the Europe-Ecologie Les Verts party (Eelv, the French Greens), has been leading Grenoble since 2014. And at the last municipal elections, held between March and June, he was decisively re-confirmed by his city's population. In 2004, he had in fact obtained 29.4 per cent in the first round: after six years in government his support grew to 46.6 per cent. In the second round, moreover, the votes rose to 53 per cent (compared to 40 per cent in 2004).
Grenoble Capitale Verte Européenne 2022, c'est gagné ! 🤞🏆🎉
#GRENOBLE2022 #capitaleverteeuropeenne #wearegrenoble #EGCA2022 #egca #onagagné @VSinkevicius
#GRENOBLE2022 #capitaleverteeuropeenne #wearegrenoble #EGCA2022 #egca #onagagné @VSinkevicius
For a long time, he was the only green mayor leading a major French city. An engineer, aged 47, Piolle was born in the Atlantic Pyrenees and has lived in Grenoble since his university days. In 2014 he stood as an outsider in the municipal elections, heading the list "Grenoble, une ville pour tous" ("Grenoble, a city for everyone"), backed by an alliance between the Eelv party, the Parti de gauche (Left Party), the Anticapitalist Left and two local associations.
"We have initiated a transformation of the imagination"
"We have initiated a transformation of the imagination. Starting from very concrete choices, such as wanting to encourage a profound change in the way urban travel is conceived," the mayor of Grenoble explained in an interview given to LifeGate in 2016. Over the years, the city has launched a series of reforms that are both concrete and symbolic: beginning with the imposition of a speed limit of 30 kilometres per hour across the entire city (with the exception of a few major roads still set at 50).
"What changes," Piolle pointed out, "is not so much the average speed: in Grenoble people were travelling at 18.9 kilometres per hour, factoring in stops and traffic, and with the new limits this falls to 17.3. What truly changes is the approach to the urban centre. The way of paying attention to others, especially pedestrians and cyclists."
🔵🇪🇺🇫🇷 🟢 Grenoble élue Capitale Verte de l'Europe pour 2022 ! Au cœur des Alpes, le climat devient fou 2x plus vite. Ensemble, amplifions les transitions. Grenoble est fière de devenir l'ambassadrice française et européenne des transitions. En avant ! ✊✊ #egca2022
Billboards have also been removed and replaced with trees (15,000 in total, in 2020), 40 kilometres of "cycle superhighways" have been created across the urban area, part of the municipal budget has been allocated to "grassroots" projects, promoted and voted on each year by residents. The city has also committed to a programme to reduce CO2 emissions by 40% by 2030, based on 17 guidelines, 48 actions and more than 160 measures to be adopted. The aim is thus to achieve 100 per cent of energy produced from renewable sources.
In Grenoble, 7,500 bikes available to residents, organic food in canteens, hotels for bees
In Grenoble, cyclists have access to 7,500 bikes (rentable at 10 cents per hour), roughly a third of the entire fleet offered in Paris (although the population is twenty times smaller than that of the capital). Those who take out an annual subscription to the municipal vélo service are also entitled to a discount on the tram network, a free service for their bike, and the option to "park" it at one of the 350 boxes distributed across the city. Electric minicars and car sharing complete the offer for "soft" mobility.
The city also has numerous pedestrian streets, 60% of meals in school canteens consists of organic and locally sourced food. An urban farm, 23 allotments and four new parks have been established, and the use of pesticides has been banned. Several "bee hotels" have been inaugurated across the city, with the aim of encouraging insects to remain in the urban environment. Among future projects, plans are also in place for the construction of urban cable cars and gondola lifts to connect the city's existing tram lines.