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Climate Mitigation through Nature-Based Solutions in Urban Poland: Harnessing knowledge and experiences for climate-resilient cities (Climate NBS Polska)

This project is completed. The project’s goal was to create multiple opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Polish cities. The aim was to increase the understanding, acceptance and uptake of multifunctional nature-based solutions (NBS) as a climate mitigation measure among a range of stakeholder groups and across numerous cities in Poland.

Buildings Climate Strategies and Plans Energy Transition and Climate-Neutral Buildings

Beitragsbild

Project info

Countries:

Poland

Project duration:

10/18 - 11/20

Target groups:

Local governments, Private sector, Educational institutions

Funding:

271,437.07 €

Contact info

Contact:

Sandra Naumann

Implementing organisation
  • Ecologic Institute gGmbH
Partner:
  • Sendzimir Foundation

Background

Many Polish cities are undergoing intense development, which is placing investment pressure on undeveloped land. Individual sites would be able to deliver on urban climate change mitigation and reduce GHG emissions, with the resulting social, economic and environmental benefits, by optimising existing green spaces and deploying NBS to develop new multifunctional natural areas and features. However, Polish cities are currently facing several barriers to the development and implementation of NBS as a cost-effective climate mitigation measure, including a lack of relevant experience and technical knowledge, and a shortage of context-specific policy instruments.

Project

The project intended to increase awareness of NBS in Poland as a cost-effective urban climate mitigation and climate protection measure. It seeked to build capacity, knowledge and skills among city officials, municipal staff and landscape planners to enable the conceptual and technical design and implementation of NBS. The project aimed to achieve its goals by (i) creating a catalogue of urban NBS; (ii) offering guidance and policy recommendations to promote urban NBS; and by (iii) setting up a targeted capacity-building programme for the project’s end-users. It included an online course, training events across Poland and a study visit to Germany. The project also fostered the development of a Polish network of NBS experts and worked closely with a number of Polish cities, such as Poznan, Krakow, Wroclaw and Warsaw.

Results

  • The project has trained and networked specialists on NBS and established a database accessible to municipalities seeking specialists to implement NBS measures.  
  • A catalogue on NBS was developed and sent to various target groups and made available digitally.  
  • Over 100 Polish cities have received a guidance document on NBS and over 400 stakeholders have been trained on NBS. 

Last update: July 2025

Success Stories

Climate-friendly by Nature

Following the invitation of EUKI project “Nature-based Solutions (NBS) Poland”, Polish landscape planners, engineers and local government experts visited Berlin’s most creative applications of NBS in August 2020. These range from a university building with a nature-based air conditioning system to Rummelsburger Bucht, Berlin’s “Sponge City”. Impressed by the possibilities, the Polish guests dedicated a session at the international conference “Blue and Green Infrastructure for Urban Climate Change Mitigation 2020” to adopting some of these solutions in Polish cities.

More about this project

Blog posts

post
30 November 2020

Online Conference: Blue and Green Infrastructure for Urban Climate Change Mitigation

post
27 November 2020

Addressing Climate Change in Cities: Berlin study tour for Polish nature-based solutions and local government experts

post
17 November 2020

Addressing climate change in cities: order your free copy of the publications

post
30 April 2020

Digital Expert Workshop: Urban Nature-Based Solutions in Germany

post
09 January 2020

Training with Nature-Based Solutions for Polish Muncipal Experts

Publications

publications
10 December 2020

See No Evil - How a lack of transparency could dash EU hopes for a green pandemic recovery

publications
24 November 2020

Addressing Climate Change in Cities – Policy Instruments to Promote Urban Nature-based Solutions (Polish)

publications
23 November 2020

Addressing Climate Change in Cities – Policy Instruments to Promote Urban Nature-based Solutions

publications
23 November 2020

Addressing Climate Change in Cities – Catalogue of Urban Nature-based Solutions (Polish)

publications
23 November 2020

Addressing Climate Change in Cities – Catalogue of Urban Nature-based Solutions

publications
19 February 2020

Addressing Climate Change in Cities