As a member of the EU’s Climate-Neutral & Smart Cities Mission, Cork City is committed to address the growing global climate crisis through meaningful actions at a local level.
Through the Intelligent Cities Challenge (ICC), Cork City is exploring proactive stakeholder engagement strategies that will lead to the creation of formal partnerships, known as Local Green Deals (LGDs). Cork City Council uses Local Green Deals (LGDs) as a strategic governance approach to accelerate sustainability action at the local level, in line with the goals of the European Green Deal.
These partnerships represent public commitments by local stakeholders across the business, private, community and voluntary sector, to take impactful climate actions in their own areas, and will be supported by Cork City Council.
The LGDs complement the objectives of Cork City’s Local Authority Climate Action Plan under the following headings:
- natural environment and resource management
- transport and mobility
- communities and partnership
- built environment and energy
The structured approach to the conclusion of LGDs with local partners assists the City to work in a focused way. The aim is to engage a broad cross-section of local stakeholders and raise awareness of the need for concrete actions by all, in particular with respect to the upgrade and retrofitting of commercial/retail premises and other initiatives that result in significant energy efficiency improvements and contribute to a reduction in GHGs.
In the spirit of inclusivity, it offers smaller, community organisations and organisations an opportunity to become involved and show their commitment through smaller scale LGDs. By acknowledging the smaller scale LGDs, the Council hopes to generate a broader, city-wide interest in Cork’s climate ambition, and encourage a wide range of parties to become part of the solution. In this way, the Council will be highlighting that a shared challenge needs a shared solution, and all groups can contribute to the city’s climate targets, while recognising that the commitments made by different parties must be achievable within their means and proportionate to their resources.
The first twelve local green deals are agreed with the with the following organisations:
