UCD Engineers organise European Green Capital event at EU Environment Council in Dublin

Three UCD engineers led the management of the European Green Capital event on behalf of the EU Commission last week in Dublin Castle at the EU Environment Council under the Irish Presidency. The European Green Capital Award similar to the European City of Culture is awarded by the EU Commission to a different city each year for outstanding environmental performance. The three RPS engineers - Dr Katie O'Neill (BAgrSc (Eng) Biosystems 2003), Angela Treanor (BE Civil 2011) and myself (BE Civil 1975) led the EU Commission Secretariat for the award. Another engineer on the team Ciara Murphy (with BEng in Structural Engineering and an MA in Public Relations with New Media from CIT) led the PR for the event.

Federico Ramos Spanish Environment Minister, P J Rudden RPS Director of European Green Capital Award (EGCA) Secretariat, Dr Katie O'Neill Project Manager EGCA Secretariat  Dr Janez Potocnik EU Environment Commissioner, Javier Moroto Mayor of Vitoria Gasteiz, Phil Hogan TD Irish Environment Minister, Angela Treanor RPS / EGCA Secretariat  Karl Falkenberg Director General of DG Environment European Commission and Ciara Murphy RPS / EGCA Secretariat

Winning cities to date have been Stockholm (2010), Hamburg (2011), Vitoria Gasteiz (2012), Nantes (2013) and Copenhagen (2014). Stockholm was awarded in 2008 as each city gets two years to prepare for hosting the award with events, conferences and generally acting as a European role model from whom other cities can learn. The 2015 winning city will be announced in Nantes next month. The four shortlisted finalists are Bristol, Brussels, Glasgow and Ljubljana capital of Slovenia.

The competition is open to all European Cities with a population over 200,000. Vitoria Gasteiz has a population of 242,000 and is the capital of the Basque Country in Northern Spain. Dublin entered the competition for the 2010 and 2015 Awards.

The event in Dublin Castle was hosted by the Irish Presidency led by Minister Phil Hogan who chaired the Council Meeting. Presentations on the European Green Capital concept were made by EU Environment Commissioner Dr Janez Potocnik, Director General of DG Environnment and Mayor of Vitoria Gasteiz the European Green Capital in 2012 - Javier Moroto Aranzabal. All three spoke passionately about the importance of the Award as three out of every four EU citizens live in an urban area big or small.

The Commissioner stated the importance of sustainability of cities is underlined by the soon to be adopted 7th EU Enviromental Action Plan - 'Cities define our future' he said 'as most envionmental pressures arise in cities from traffic congestion to water and waste issues'. Director General Falkenberg said the European Green Capital stood for the principal issues which dominate the work of DG Environnment. He compared the 12 technical criteria on which cities were judged by experts as the 12 stars on the EU flag - climate change, mobility, biodiversity, open space/sustainable land use, air quality, noise, water management, wastewater treatment, waste management, energy efficiency, environmental management systems and eco-innovation.

Prior to the event the Mayor Moroto of Vitoria paid a courtesy call to the Dublin Lord Mayor Cllr Naoise O Muiri in City Hall. Both Mayors discussed the city government systems in both Irish and Spanish democracy. The Lord Mayor and Acting City Manager also showed their visiting guest the Dublin City Chamber where meetings of the City Council take place.

Rachel Purcell RPS, Ciara Murphy EGCA, Dr. Katie O'Neill EGCA, Mayor of Vitoria-Gasteiz Javier Maroto, Lord Mayor of Dublin Cllr. Naoise Ó Muirí, Izaskun Ruiz Intern with RPS from Vitoria-Gasteiz, Angela Treanor EGCA, PJ Rudden EGCA

On the following day EU Commissioner Potocnik and myself addressed the Dublin Chamber of Commerce 'Green Economy Forum' - the Commissioner on general EU environment policy and how it had to make economic sense to be workable for business and myself on the European Green Capital policy and implementation gearing towards sustainable urban living.

Werner Kruckow CEO Siemens, Dr. Janez Potocnik EU Environment Commissioner, Gina Quinn CEO Dublin Chamber of Commerce, PJ Rudden RPS and Director of European Green Capital Secretariat and Paul Hallam Chairman of Dublin Green Economy Forum

All in all a very busy two days not to mention the months of preparation that went into the run up to the Irish Presidency event with the 27 Member State Ministers. We were proud to represent the EU Commission at these events as professional engineers but proud too of another hugely successful Irish Presidency presiding over Europe.