On 27 September over 50 participants, including policy-makers, public authorities, and local businesses, from the six countries represented in the EU-funded UrbanWINS project (Austria, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Spain and Sweden) attended the project’s kick-off conference. The three-year UrbanWINS project will develop and test eco-innovative strategies for waste prevention and management in eight pilot cities.

The Mayor of Cremona (Italy), Gianluca Galimberti, opened the conference and stressed the importance of cooperation among cities at European, national and regional level. “Today we live in a complicated time for Europe. We need to build relations between European countries and territories on future projects. This is what we are doing, starting from our city, with the UrbanWINS Project. We need to imagine our cities as large social, cultural and economic laboratories and this is also happening thanks to UrbanWINS. The project’s scope relates to research, data analysis and choices,” he said.

Leonardo Rosado of Chalmers Technology University explained how cities represent the key drivers of the economy and sustainable development. As cities “eat” resources, we need to look at them as living organisms and to work on changing urban lifestyles and closing material loops. Giulia Lucertini of Università IUAV di Venezia explained how strategic planning allows us to develop plans to reduce waste at the source.

For more information, read the press release.