This summer BluePoint in Brussels was the host venue for a two-day final event of the H2020 project GoGreenRoutes. As this EU Horizon 2020 project begins to wrap up, Brussels, the EU capital, was the apt location for this final event. Sister projects working with nature-based solutions and human health also contributed They included VARCITIES, euPOLIS, and IN-HABIT, who highlighted their innovations from the past four years working alongside with GoGreenRoutes. The final event was both a chance to showcase all the effort projects put in however, it was also a time for the celebration of nature in a broader sense. It was timely given that the Nature Restoration Law had just been approved days earlier (17th June) by the EU Environment Council.

The event with over 200 attendees was opened by Terri Morrisey, CEO of an organisational psychology consultancy, ThisIs.EU. Terri is also currently the innovation manager for the project, and acted as MC. Among the dignitaries were Mayor of Nitra Slovakia, Marek Hattas, who gave a welcome speech, which was followed by Paola Lepori, an EU Policy officer for Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) and Biodiversity. Dr Lepori articulated the research and policy backdrop to EU work in Nature-based solutions and the future EU research initiatives in the field. Dr Lepori commented on the Nature Restoration Law as “a first of its kind and absolutely central piece of legislation.” This was complimented by a welcome speech by Paul Webb, Head of Department for “Green Europe” research at the European Research Executive Agency, who spoke on the efforts of the Executive and his excitement for funding projects and clusters as he stated, “we love to see the integration of different projects, the synthesis of the research, the effective deployment of results and the real dissemination and exploitation of the results.”

Day one
Our first session was chaired by Professor Claudio Nigg from the University of Bern, who is also a visiting Professor at Maynooth University. GoGreenRoutes and the related projects discussed their vision for their cities and how it was realised. Time-lapse videos gave clarity to the implementation of the Nature-based solutions across our cities specifically with the cities of Versailles and Burgas. In parallel, an innovation showcase which enabled attendees to sample a variety of technologies including the virtual reality showcase hosted by Dr Signbjorn Litleskare of Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences (INN).

Mobile applications for psychological resilience from partners ICEPE and Monsenso, sustainable foodprints from Nutritics and Plant Based Innovations provided further opportunities for attendees to engage with the innovations in Mhealth. Alan Scarry showcased a novel innovation based on selection from the innovation panel at this event: AI to assess both sustainability and nutritional composition of food and also allowing users to take an image of their lunch at the event to see this and an additional Nova classification.

This next session focused on how the societal challenges in each city were met by the Nature-based Solution and was expertly chaired by Mario Balzan from Ecostack Innovations and Rik De Vreese of the European Forest Institute. Each of the four projects demonstrated how they uniquely applied nature-based solutions and interventions. In GoGreenRoutes, this ranged from the health forest in Lahti, Finland, to the Casltetroy Greenway in Limerick, Ireland.

Interestingly, the lunch options were influenced by our project Eco-Code which mandated that sustainable food choices were the default option at the conference. Our interns Ada Nicke and Raegan Thompson also calculated how our sustainable travel options to Brussels reduced our carbon footprint which totalled 40,000kg less CO2 than those if the majority had travelled by airplane.

Next, we explored the participatory approaches in re-designing and transforming public spaces in cities to improve human and environmental health. This session was chaired by Elaine Gallagher, an Environmental Psychologist and Behavioural Science Consultant. GoGreenRoutes’ approach was shared by Julia Gackle of RWTH who demonstrated the seedbed interventions as a way of garnering participation. After this session, there was a panel to discuss gender, inclusion and diversity (GID) with project representatives chaired by Dr Evi Petersen from OsloMet, a member of the advisory board. Evi facilitated the project representatives' exploration of the steps taken to ensure that GID and intersectionality were to the fore of our project activities. Cassie Murphy, a PhD researcher at Maynooth University, highlighted the GID checklist, peer reviewed journal article and the forthcoming joint deliverable with sister projects. The final session of the day addressed the assessment of sustainability and resilience of cities through health and well-being indicators. Prof Chris Gidlow of Staffordshire University led this session with contributions from Tadhg MacIntyre, GoGreenRoutes’ Project Coordinator and Rossano Schifanella of the University of Turin. In their presentations, they focused on local monitoring strategy and framework, GoGreenRoutes Indicators, and the use of AI for innovative data.

Terri Morrisey closed the first day with a mention of what the effects of our actions will be if we do not stop. She posed a rhetorical question: “What will the world look like in 50 years when some of us are gone?”

Day two
The opening session was chaired by Daniela Stroeckl (Carinthia University of Applied Sciences, Austria). For this discussion, GoGreenRoutes formed an international panel of researchers including Eibhlis O’ Connor and Alan Scarry from the University of Limerick, Deirdre MacIntyre from ICEPE, and Maria Fernandez de Osso from Maynooth University. The demonstration of technologies to support sustainable eating, resilience, nature connectedness and a digital placemaking toolkit was insightful and cutting-edge. After some refreshments, an innovation panel was led by Richard Plenty from ThisIs…EU in which panellists demonstrated nature-based innovations to transform spaces. GoGreenRoutes was superbly represented by Terri Morrisey, Marten Hellberg (Organoclicks), Jonathan Mueller (Helix), Nanna Iversen (Monsenso), Alan Scarry (University of Limerick), Taru Suutari (Lahti). The latter speaker was supported by the city of Lahti to receive training in eco-therapy to optimise the use of the health forest. Marten Hellberg (Organiclicks) urged us to follow through with our work as he said, “it is our responsibility to share this out and show this can be very positive.”

Before lunch, Meline Baronian from the City of Clamart and Martin Grisel from EUKN hosted the lessons learned across our cities session. In this session each project had representatives of each city discuss what was learned and gained from taking part in the project in their cities which brought us up to lunch of day two. After lunch, we had our final sessions of the GoGreenRoutes conference with Dr. Annalisa Setti chairing the policy impact discussion featuring Dr. Tadhg MacIntyre, Evelise Pereira and Eibhlis O’ Connor. These three demonstrated evidence of policy impact which was then followed by a panel discussion from members of all projects with GoGreenRoutes being represented expertly by Claudio Nigg.

Endings and New Beginnings
As the GoGreenRoutes project ends, a new cluster of European projects was launched. The planetary health cluster involves GoGreen Next, Planet4Health, MOSAIC, TULIPS, and SPRINGS. Prof. Craig Mahoney opened this section of the conference with an overview of the health research context and then introduced a VIP speaker Alex Mulet Indrayanti, a policy officer at DG Research and Innovation. Indrayanti presented an overview of the EU planetary health research context with a look into planetary health crisis and how other project clusters have worked in the past. This was followed by GoGreen Next and her partners presenting an overview of the planetary health cluster.

The subsequent session was presented by Stéphane Hogan , a VIP speaker from the Head Unit HaDEA.A3 – Health Research who discussed EU research funding, project clustering, the planetary health topic and how they “want to foster clusters in all places that make sense.” Finally, Prof. Craig Mahoney wrapped up the conference with some closing remarks, “I would urge you to stay fully engaged in pioneering research and innovation in sustainability even when the project ends.” There was much work to do and we could achieve that by working together. Dr. Tadhg MacIntyre, the project coordinator of both GoGreenRoutes and GoGreen Next said his thanks to all the team, with a particular mention to GoGreenRoutes manager Dr. Aisling O’Loghlen, that made the conference possible. He thanked all 11 projects focused on NBS and health that were present and reflected that “this is only the end of the beginning of the innovative research on nature and urban health.”