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DRUŠTVO SVETOVNO OMREŽJE ZA ZELENO INFRASTRUKTURO WGIN

WGIN

Our mission is to advocate and promote the integration of green infrastructure in urban planning, globally.

Lobbying Activity

Response to Towards a Circular, Regenerative and Competitive Bioeconomy

23 Jun 2025

As a not-for-profit organisation advocating for the transition from a grey to green and blue infrastructure for buildings and overall urban design, the World Green Infrastructure Network welcomes the European Commissions initiative to further the growth potential of a regenerative bioeconomy and the opportunity to provide feedback concerning the upcoming strategy. 1. Integration of nature-based solutions in urban infrastructure as a key instrument for circular use of biological resources enhancing climate resilience When it comes to scaling up circular, nature-based solutions, green infrastructure elements like green roofs and walls should find due consideration under the new EU Strategy Towards a Circular, Regenerative and Competitive Bioeconomy. As our urban environments become denser, climates hotter and weather events more severe, exploiting the potential of circular, nature-based solutions are crucial to increase the resilience of cities. Nature-based solutions like green infrastructure elements reduce urban temperatures and reduce the risk of flooding thanks to the retention and detention of stormwater, contributing with evapotranspiration to the restoration of the natural water cycle in cities. Moreover, they have the additional benefits of restoring biodiversity in cities, reducing pollutants concentrations and noise pollution, while capturing carbon aspects that will become increasingly important as our cities are becoming denser and experiencing more traffic. Given all the benefits, incentivising the deployment and integration of nature-based solutions like green roofs and walls in urban areas, should be a crucial element of the new strategy going forward. 2. Holistic regulatory framework making the link with existing legislations for an effective implementation Various important initiatives existing today advance the uptake of nature-based solutions. Among them are the Nature Restoration Regulation, the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive, the Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, or the EU Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change. These initiatives reflect a growing momentum to further advance in our decarbonisation efforts, while consolidating this with actions on improving circular and resource-efficient practices, e.g. through nature-based solutions like green infrastructure elements. The EUs action on the bioeconomy strategy should further strengthen the full implementation of adjacent already existing frameworks, while drawing synergies with new initiatives under the helm of the new bioeconomy strategy to maximise impact in urban areas. Effective strategies for climate, circularity, biodiversity and resource use must be mutually reinforcing each other to be able to create a stable, credible and mature framework that furthers not only regenerative, nature-based and circular solutions, but the competitiveness of the EUs bioeconomy overall. Acting like green lungs for cities, nature-based solutions can bring a variety of benefits in terms of energy efficiency, improved air quality, providing a safe haven for biodiversity and a place to enhance well-being of residents elements that should be front and centre for a people driven transition towards a circular, regenerative and competitive bioeconomy.
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Meeting with Jutta Paulus (Member of the European Parliament)

24 Apr 2025 · Panel discussion: Water Resilience & Climate Adaptation

Meeting with Pernille Weiss-Ehler (Cabinet of Commissioner Jessika Roswall)

31 Mar 2025 · Water Resilience Strategy

Response to European Water Resilience Strategy

4 Mar 2025

The European Chapter of the World Green Infrastructure Network would like to thank the European Commission for providing the opportunity to share its views on the upcoming European Water Resilience Strategy. First of all, the WGIN European Chapter very much welcomes the publication of this strategy, which will be crucial to addressing the water-related challenges of Europe. As rightly pointed out by the supportive document for this call for evidence over the last 5 years, floods, prolonged droughts and water scarcity have affected more and more areas of the EU and are being exacerbated by climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss. The WGIN European Chapter would like to stress that this situation is particularly acute in urban areas, which are home to 75% of Europeans. Many cities are built on impervious surfaces, hence the potential for water infiltration as well as water retention and detention is limited. This breaks the natural water cycle and limits the resilience of urban areas to water-related extreme weather events, such as prolonged droughts or heavy rainfalls. Climate change will also exacerbate water stress, both related to water scarcity or water overflow depending on the geographical and climate situation of cities. Other specificities of urban areas, such as the heat island effect, are also affecting the water needs of inhabitants. In this context, the WGIN European Chapter strongly believes that a part of the upcoming European Water Resilience Strategy should be focused on tackling the specific challenges faced by cities to restore the natural water cycle and improve their water resilience. The introduction of green spaces is a crucial element to facilitate water retention and detention and therefore improve cities water management. However, space is limited in urban areas, especially very dense ones, reducing the scope of solutions available to municipalities to improve their water resilience. Green infrastructures, namely green roofs and walls, represent space-efficient solutions to address water pollution, reduce risks of urban flooding and runoffs, and enhance nature-based rainwater filtration in urban areas. In particular, green roof systems with large water storage capacities allow for a high substrate moisture and evapotranspiration rates (even during drought periods). Highly transpiring and densely populated with plants, green roofs further contribute to infiltrate stormwater and return it to the atmosphere. This is highlighted, among others, in a recent study that also assesses the temperature reduction of an intensive green roof during summer days. The WGIN European Chapter would therefore ask the European Commission to include in the Water Resilience Strategy specific actions to increase the deployment of urban green infrastructures in cities. This can be done with a variety of measures, such as legal obligations to ensure their mandatory installation on specific building segments or at least assess the benefits of doing so, or introducing green infrastructure financial and technical assistance tools for municipalities and urban planners. In particular, such measures could be included in the strategys second area for action, dedicated to infrastructure. By doing this, the European Water Resilience Strategy will support the restoration of the broken natural water cycle in cities, addressing one of the root causes of their vulnerability in the next years.
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Response to 2040 Climate Target Plan

23 Jun 2023

The World Green Infrastructure Network would like to thank the European Commission for the opportunity to give its views on the EU 2040 climate target. Climate change mitigation is and should remain an integral part of the EU policy framework. By setting an ambitious 2040 climate target, Europe will draw the path to climate neutrality while providing business and investors predictability. At the same time, it is necessary for Europe to gradually ensure adaptation and resilience to a changing climate. The increasing impacts of climate change, in particular through more and more extreme weather events, lead to an exponential number of social, economic and environmental problems. Those can be mitigated if the right solutions are put in place. As stated in the European Commissions recent guidance on the adaptation of buildings to climate change, the installation of urban green infrastructures, including green roofs and walls, can contribute to significantly reducing the impacts of extreme weather events. Indeed, vegetated surfaces can reduce urban runoff and storm water overflow in case of heavy rainfalls and mitigate the Urban Heat Island effect during temperature peaks. Beyond adaptation, the installation of green roofs and walls will also lead to reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as they deliver energy savings by lowering buildings energy needs (passive cooling) or by reducing the energy required for urban wastewater management (water-energy nexus). Green roofs also increase the efficiency of solar panel installations, allowing for higher renewable energy production. The achievement of an ambitious EU 2040 climate target will require the deployment of numerous technologies. In that context, installing urban green infrastructures can support both climate change mitigation and adaptation and deliver a broad range of benefits. We therefore recommend the European Commission to consider the impact of urban green infrastructures and the integration of vegetation in buildings when modelling the 2040 climate target.
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Meeting with Ciarán Cuffe (Member of the European Parliament, Rapporteur)

27 Apr 2023 · Green, efficient and solar-powered: key features of a sustainable building stock

Meeting with Nils Torvalds (Member of the European Parliament, Rapporteur) and Unilever and Gothenburg European Office

5 Apr 2023 · Urban wastewater treatment

Meeting with Arunas Ribokas (Cabinet of Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius)

6 Dec 2021 · To discuss the Commission's proposal to revise the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive

Meeting with Stefano Grassi (Cabinet of Commissioner Kadri Simson) and Transport and Environment (European Federation for Transport and Environment) and

2 Dec 2021 · EPBD - Energy efficiency - Minimum Energy Performance Standards

Response to Revision of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive 2010/31/EU

22 Mar 2021

The EU Chapter of the World Green Infrastructure Network (WGIN) is the European section of a collaborative network that brings together national and regional industry associations and researchers to promote the incorporation of urban green infrastructure practice and planning, globally. WGIN welcomes the very valuable and well-founded wording on the benefits of green roofs and walls recognised in the “Likely environmental impacts” section of the document which underlines the potential of buildings to turn into a carbon sink through green infrastructure such as green roofs. Indeed, green roofs and walls can highly contribute to cutting Co2 emissions and energy consumption of buildings across the Union, supporting the goal of a decarbonised and highly efficient EU building stock by 2050, as stressed in the Renovation Wave strategy. Green infrastructure solutions support the isolation of buildings and therefore reduce their energy consumption, in a cost-effective and aesthetic way. Thanks to green roofs, buildings require less cooling in summer and less heating in winter. For residents, this means a lower energy bill - and therefore lower housing costs - and more comfort. Green roofs and walls also make a substantial contribution to biodiversity within urban areas by providing habitats for a variety of species (as pollinators) while mitigating the effect of climate change, as the Urban Heat Island effect, therefore improving the resilience of our cities. The multiple benefits of green infrastructure have already been recognised in a wide range of Commission documents released under the European Green Deal, namely the Biodiversity strategy, the Renovation Wave strategy, the Climate Adaptation strategy and this very roadmap. The benefits of such solutions are also discussed in the development of the Energy Efficiency First principle guidelines. Indeed, integrating green surfaces such as green roofs is a perfect example of the application of such a principle in the building sector. With regards to stormwater management, for example, prioritising investments in green and blue infrastructure that retain and detain rainwater reduces the water inflow and therefore the energy consumption of wastewater treatment plants. Overall, WGIN supports the roadmap’s option 3 which envisages a comprehensive revision of the Directive, paramount to achieve the goals of the Renovation Wave and of the European Green Deal. An ambitious regulatory approach is central to spur actions in this key sector for decarbonisation and the reduction of energy consumption. WGIN believes that mandatory provisions to install green roofs and walls should be introduced in the revision. This would allow to make sure that whenever a certain amount of “green” is taken away from the soil, as for construction purposes, it can be reinserted at the top of the building. Such requirements need to be fit for purpose and should depend on the building segment targeted. They could be notably linked with the introduction of Mandatory Energy Performance Standards (MEPS) for buildings, as envisaged in the roadmap. Overall, we believe that green infrastructure should be integrated into the Commission’s assessment of stakeholders’ views for the revision of the EPBD. The upcoming public consultation should look for inputs on the potential of green infrastructure to reduce the energy consumption of buildings, therefore supporting the aim of the Directive. Finally, WGIN believes that the above proposals should be integrated into the comprehensive Impact Assessment that the Commission will carry out ahead of the revision of the EPBD. In this regard, WGIN members have developed a tool which simulates the potential impact of the introduction of green roofs and walls in a city, which could be of interest for that purpose. Further details on WGIN's views regarding the revision of the EPBD can be found in the attached document.
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Response to Revision of the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive

3 Sept 2020

The UWWTD has played a substantial role in improving the quality of European water resources and reducing pollution levels in water bodies. However, there are still some issues that the Directive has not fully addressed, namely the lack of a proper legal framework with regards to urban runoff and storm water management. We believe that the 29-year-old Directive should be updated to better address this critical issue and related challenges including: The collection of a wide range of toxic pollutants such as heavy metals, plastics and microplastics which, in case of storm water overflow, are dumped, usually untreated, into local waterways such as local rivers and creeks. Increased energy consumption which spikes when extreme efforts is required from wastewater treatment plants that have to cope with huge inflow. The large social costs such as traffic disruptions, damage to infrastructure and buildings and lost sales for businesses caused by extreme rain water runoff and urban flooding. These issues are likely to be further aggravated by an increasing number of heavy precipitation events under the changing climate. In addition, the increase of impervious surfaces in urban areas reduces the phenomenon of infiltration and evaporation of rainwater, putting further pressure on wastewater infrastructure. Also the urban heat island effect is being increased, due to the lack of evaporation. Currently urban storm water overflows, which constitute a sizable remaining source of loads, are only addressed by a footnote in the current Directive (Annex I, A, footnote 1). The lack of effective legal provisions on the management of storm water and urban runoff challenges the effectiveness of the Directive in reducing pollution in water bodies. This was confirmed also by the Court of Justice of the European Union, which in its ruling on Case C‑301/10 of October 2012 pointed out the need for the European Commission to develop guidance in this area. For these reasons, we believe that the UWWTD should be revised to incorporate a better legal framing for urban runoff and storm water management with the specific goal to promote the uptake of nature-based solutions which can increase resilience and manage more and more frequent extreme rains, while rebuilding the natural water cycle in urban areas. Building a nature-based infrastructure that rebuilds the natural water cycle will directly lead to an infrastructure that can buffer extreme rain events and reduces urban heat through evaporation. In the revision of the UWWTD, the European Commission should integrate nature-based solutions in urban areas as an effective strategy for runoff and urban heat island reduction. It should support green urban infrastructure development, including green roofs, and provide support to cities which are more and more forced to take steps to reduce stormwater runoff. Green and blue-green roofs – which can be retrofitted as well as incorporated in the design of new buildings - mimic natural hydrologic functions and by doing so they allow water to evaporate (evapotranspiration), they absorb and retain rainwater so they reduce runoff volumes. Detention capacity is another aspect to consider. Research indicates that peak flow rates are reduced by 50 percent to 90 percent with green roofs compared to conventional roofs. Blue-green roofs also allow to retain complete storm events with very small or even no runoff during storm events. By retaining rainwater, green roofs decrease pollutant loads to receiving waters, reduce municipal energy bills to treat rainwater and reduce the cost for extraordinary maintenance and economic loss due to urban flooding.
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Response to Commission Communication – "Renovation wave" initiative for the building sector

8 Jun 2020

The transition from “grey to green and blue infrastructures” in buildings, neighbourhoods and cities is an indispensable step to achieve the ambitious goal of making Europe the first climate neutral continent of the world. As World Green Infrastructure Network (WGIN), we believe that an integrated approach to building renovation should include the deployment of green and blue infrastructures, namely green roofs and walls, in line with climate neutrality, circular economy and pollution prevention principles. Evidence shows that nature-based solutions such as green roofs and walls deliver multiple benefits to climate change mitigation and adaptation goals. These include: energy savings, emissions reduction, improved air quality, mitigation of the urban heat island effect, improved storm water management and reduced risk of floods, increased biodiversity and more green spaces for citizens in densely populated cities – which is widely recognised to have a positive effect on mental health and wellbeing. Supporting the deployment and integration of nature-based solutions such as green roofs and walls across the EU building stock would also bring a positive economic impact to a European and local value chain made of gardeners, architects and landscapers, manufacturers and installers of green roofs systems. This is even more important in a moment when European citizens and businesses, especially SMEs, need to recover from the Covid-19 socio-economic shock. For these reasons, the European Commission should incentivise the deployment of vegetated roofs and walls during major building renovations and new building constructions. To this aim, they should consider the introduction of mandatory green surfaces installations and the creation of synergies between the Renovation Wave and the EU 2030 Biodiversity Strategy. With specific regard to biodiversity, urbanisation is projected to expand over the next few decades. Vegetated surfaces have the potential to play an increasingly important role in reconciliating ecology with urban development by increasing the availability of living space for a variety of organisms. They can create ecological habitats and a network of urban patches (i.e. corridor to promote gene flow and migration) on billions of square meters of otherwise unutilised space. Very importantly they can make a functional contribution to biodiversity providing habitats for bees, butterflies and other pollinator insects whose population is declining at an alarming rate. The Renovation Wave is set to bring multiple benefits for citizens, allowing them to reduce energy demand, save money, and live in healthier buildings with enhanced climate resilience. It will also help to alleviate energy poverty and improve comfort, sanitary conditions, and quality of life in all buildings across the continent. By factoring green roofs and walls in its considerations, the European Commission can strengthen and add more positive results and make a key step to contribute to greening European cities, for the benefit of citizens, the economy and the environment.
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