Green City Accord
Updated on 27.01.2026
The European Green Capital and European Green Leaf Awards honor cities that lead in environmental stewardship and sustainable urban living. They showcase best practices in areas like climate action, air quality, biodiversity, and waste management to inspire other cities across Europe.
The Green City Accord is a movement of European mayors committed to making cities cleaner and healthier. It aims to improve the quality of life for all Europeans and accelerate the implementation of relevant EU environmental laws. By signing the Accord, cities commit to addressing five areas of environmental management: air, water, nature and biodiversity, circular economy and waste, and noise.
The two initiatives are closely interconnected, and being a GCA signatory provides a valuable advantage when applying for the EGCL title.
Activities on circular economy
EGCL applicants must demonstrate strong results in waste management and circular economy, as it is one of the seven key evaluation areas.
By signing the Green City Accord, cities are expected to step up efforts and report their progress in each of the five areas every three years, using a limited set of mandatory indicators. These indicators by which cities agree to improve are:
- Air Quality
- Water
- Nature/Biodiversity
- Waste/Circular Economy
- Noise
Countries
The Green City Accord has signatories from 22 out of the 27 EU member-states, as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Sectors
Air Quality, Water, Biodiversity, Waste, Circular Economy, Noise Pollution
Key services provided for the circular economy
The main role of the GCA is to monitor cities and make sure they comply with the agreed indicators. The Accord monitors cities’ efforts in five key areas that are to be met by 2023:
- Air: to make a significant improvement in air quality by more closely respecting the WHO’s air quality guidelines and ending exceedances of EU air quality standards as soon as possible.
- Water: to make significant progress in improving the quality of water bodies and the efficiency of water use.
- Nature and biodiversity: to make considerable progress in conserving and enhancing urban biodiversity, including through an increase in the extent and quality of green areas in cities, and by halting the loss of, and restoring urban ecosystems.
- Circular economy and waste: to advance towards the CE by securing a significant improvement in the management of household municipal waste, an important reduction in waste generation and landfilling, and a substantial increase in re-use, repair and recycling.
- Noise: to significantly reduce noise pollution in cities and move closer to WHO recommended levels.
List of relevant material
Description of future collaboration with CCRI-CSO
- GCA can make the most of resources and the network set up by the Circular Cities and Regions Initiative (CCRI).
- Work together on disseminating information to cities.
- CCRI can provide complementary assistance regarding implementation and funds.
- Communication is also a key source of cooperation, especially regarding CCRI calls.
- CCRI can make the most of valuable information extracted from the lessons learned from GCA activities.
- GCA can organise dedicated workshops on circularity for cities.
- Potential triangular collaboration between GCA, CCRI and the 100 Intelligent Cities Challenge.
Additional information
Waste management and shift to a CE are key GCA areas that should be considered for future potential collaboration.
large 500 000-200 000, medium 200 000-50 000, and small cities 50 000-5 000
