Today, the European Commission invites European cities committed to sustainability to apply for the 2027 edition of the European Green Capital and Green Leaf Awards. These Awards recognise and reward the efforts of European towns and cities that strive to reduce their local and global environmental impact while improving the quality of life for their inhabitants.
The European Green Capital Award is available for cities with over 100,000 inhabitants, while smaller towns and cities with more than 20,000 inhabitants can apply for the European Green Leaf Award.
The winner of the Green Capital Award will receive €600,000 and up to two Green Leaf winners will receive €200,000 each.
The financial prize supports the winning cities in implementing initiatives to enhance their environmental performance and in engaging with citizens, especially during their winning year. Additionally, all applicants will receive personalised feedback on their applications.
Find more information here!
Awards & Competition
This call for entries for the European Green Capital and European Green Leaf Awards is open to the following applicants:
- Applicant cities from Member States as well as from third countries that are associated to the LIFE programme at the time of closure of the present call.
- Cities from EEA countries can also participate in the call and win the awards, but the prize money will only be given to countries that are associated to the LIFE programme at the time of closure of the present call.
- For the European Green Capital: applicant cities from the countries listed above which have more than 100 000 inhabitants.
- For the European Green Leaf: applicant cities from the countries listed above from 20 000 and below 10 000 inhabitants.
- For the purposes of this contest, a 'city' is understood to be an (1) urban area, including metropolitan areas (excluding agglomerations that combine more than one otherwise eligible cities), and must encompass an (2) administrative unit governed by a city council or another form of democratically elected body. In case of doubt whether an entity is a city or not, the applicant will be asked to show the status of the city in question in accordance with its national law.
- For population data, Eurostat will be the source of reference. For countries not covered by Eurostat, the European Commission will perform specific checks when assessing the eligibility criteria and might ask any concerned cities to prove they comply with this requirement.
- In any given year, cities can apply for either the European Green Capital Award or European Green Leaf Awards, but not for both at the same time.
- Past winners of the European Green Capital Award or European Green Leaf Awards titles may not re-apply.
European Green Capital Award