City Café discussed the role of cities in environmental sustainability
Inês Santos Silva was the guest of the first session of City Café, this Tuesday, at Porto Innovation Hub. The speaker focused her presentation on the theme of sustainability, which she defined as “the new fuel for progress”.
City Café returned to Porto Innovation Hub (PIH) and took up a new topic, centered on the theme of environmental sustainability, climate change and global warming.
This time, City Café challenged Inês Santos Silva, executive director of Aliados – The Challenges Consulting and co-founder of Portuguese Women in Tech, to point out the main trends and projects that will make a difference in the area of sustainability, throughout this year. During the presentation, the guest gave special importance to the role of cities in terms of promoting the adoption of a set of more sustainable and more environmentally friendly habits.
“Currently, cities occupy 3% of the planet Earth, but it is in cities that 55% of the world’s population lives, which makes them responsible for 60% of CO2 emissions. Therefore, cities must increasingly play an active role in solving the environmental risks already identified”, said Inês Santos Silva.
The presentation also listed several good examples, already put into practice, of some cities, namely New York (USA), Peterborough (England) and Porto (Portugal). According to the speaker, these metropolises already have sustainable strategies and policies in place with the aim of reducing the ecological footprint of their cities and their citizens.
“In Porto, for example, a notable investment has been made in this area, with emphasis on initiatives such as the ‘Porto Circular 2030 Roadmap‘ and the 100 Thousand Trees Project in the Porto Metropolitan Area, which has served as a model for other cities”, referred the executive director of Aliados.
Before the traditional question and answer period, Inês Santos Silva expressed the five main challenges for sustainable cities: reducing the ecological footprint; boost services and ecosystem and biodiversity; invest in sustainability; improve the life quality; and promoting leadership and cooperation in combating global warming.
To conclude this mission, the City Café guest pointed out as a tool the “Sustainable Development Goals” framework, launched in 2015, which continues to be a guiding document in terms of sustainability.
As for the future of the planet, the final message was clear: “cities are going to shape our future”.
(This event was broadcasted live from the Porto Innovation Hub’s Facebook. You can retrieve the broadcast here)