The Green Living Areas Community Gathers in Barcelona to Accelerate the Transition to Resilient, Sustainable Mediterranean Territories
From the 28th to the 29th May 2025, the Green Living Areas Community came together in Barcelona for the second time, marking a key milestone in the collective effort to build greener, more inclusive, and resilient territories across the Euro-Mediterranean region.
Co-hosted by the Euro-Mediterranean Economists Association (EMEA) and MedCities, and co-organised by the partners of the Community for Living Areas Project, the event brought together over 120 participants from all 24 projects under the GLA Mission of the Interreg Euro-MED Programme.
The two-day gathering, held at the historic Sant Pau Recinte Modernista, provided a dynamic platform
for dialogue, knowledge exchange, and collaborative planning.
Day 1 featured the ETU Forum, where participants discussed strategies for building resilience through integrated approaches. The plenary session also welcomed five new projects into the GLA Mission, enriching the community’s diversity and capacity for innovation. A speed-matching session to identify joint-solutions among projects and a creative team-building activity led by Città Infinita fostered a sense of shared purpose, helping participants to get to know the members of the community and the over a hundred solutions currently being developed by all thematic projects.
Day 2 focused on practical tools and future strategies. Participants engaged in hands-on training modules on policy, financing, and transferring, followed by thematic working groups gathering projects working on similar topics such as green mobility, spatial planning, an
d energy. The thematic working groups included: Green & climate change resilient spatial planning, Finance for green transition, Green mobility, Green energy systems and Green community engagement. A dedicated session introduced the GLA Mission Catalogue of Services, designed to support the transfer and amplification of project results in the years to come. The final day was wrapped up with an interactive quiz with all event participants to recap on core elements of the Green Living Areas Community’s aims and functions.
As a next step, the focus will turn to gathering the outcomes from the discussions and activities to inform the next phases of the project. The GLA Community remains committed to supporting its members in facilitating transferring, the development of joint solutions among projects and amplifying impact of results across the Euro-Mediterranean region.
The Barcelona Green Living Areas Community gathering stands as a testament to the power of collaboration and shared vision in building a greener, more resilient future for all.
