Next week, eight European cities will find out whether their efforts to cut emissions and make room for nature are enough to win one of the EU’s top green titles.
The European Commission’s annual European Green Capital and Green Leaf Awards recognise cities making measurable environmental progress while improving quality of life for their residents.
This June, an independent panel whittled 27 eligible applicants down to eight finalists, judging them on everything from air and water quality to their biodiversity and efforts to cut emissions.
The winners will be announced next week on 8 October in Guimarães, Portugal, the 2026 Green Capital. They are selected more than a year in advance, giving cities time to prepare projects, events and public programmes they want to run during their title year.
Five are in the running for the Green Capital title: Aalborg in Denmark, Bielsko-Biała in Poland, Košice in Slovakia, Porto in Portugal and Zaragoza in Spain.
Another three – Benidorm and Chiclana de la Frontera in Spain, and Estarreja in Portugal – have been shortlisted for the Green Leaf awards for cities with smaller populations.
How are Europe’s greenest cities judged?
The EU launched the Green Capital Award to recognise cities that are making measurable progress on environmental problems and improving quality of life for their residents.
The main prize is open to cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants. Smaller cities with populations between 20,000 and 100,000 compete for the Green Leaf title.
The expert panel judged applicants in seven areas, including how clean their air and water are, how they protect nature and green space, how they manage waste and noise, how quickly they are cutting emissions and how they are preparing for threats such as extreme heat and flooding.
Each finalist has different strengths.
Zaragoza, for example, scored well for biodiversity and green space. The city is connecting parks, riverbanks, wetlands, street trees and surrounding natural areas into one network, designed to give wildlife more room to move and help reduce the risk of flooding.
Porto stood out for its water management, as well as its preparations for a hotter, less predictable climate. Over the past decade, the city has worked to restore the Rio Tinto riverbed and banks, built new parks that hold rainwater during downpours and begun reusing treated wastewater for agricultural irrigation and street cleaning.
The resort town of Benidorm, meanwhile, has earned praise for adding far more greenery to its built-up streets. Since 2012, it has expanded its public gardens from 350,000 square metres to more than 1.5 million and nearly quadrupled its number of trees. Today, 92 per cent of residents live within 300 metres of a public green space.
The finalists will present their plans to an international jury next week, on 7 and 8 October.
The Green Capital winner receives €600,000 to put environmental plans into practice, while Green Leaf winners can take home €200,000 for green projects and public activities.
How are European cities adapting to a hotter climate?
The changes being recognised by the EU are part of a paradigm shift visible in cities around Europe. As summers get hotter and weather patterns become more unpredictable, urban planners are giving more space back to trees, parks and water.
In Barcelona, for example, some streets have been closed to through traffic while others have been turned into parks and pedestrian areas.
Meanwhile, in Milan, the Bosco Verticale has provided a small but important example of ways cities can add greenery even where there’s little room for parks. The two residential towers feature more than 21,000 trees and shrubs on their terraces.
In Breda, the Netherlands, widespread civic involvement has transformed the city since the turn of the century. Concrete tiles have been replaced with grass, flower beds and trees. Homes and schools have added rooftop gardens.
Today, 60 per cent of the city is green space – part of more than a decade of work that helped Breda become the EU’s first National Park City in 2025.
The Green Cities Awards are not only a matter of adding plants to buildings or streets, though. Heilbronn, Germany, won the 2027 Green Capital title after scoring highly for its clean air and water, noise reduction policies and waste reduction, among other things.
When the jury meets next week, it will be judging how far the eight finalists have turned similar ideas into city-wide change.
