Sensemaking webinar, third round, a highly useful event for the ActGREEN project.
Project ActGREEN carries out its activities within a call funded through the Horizon programme, with support from the consortium implementing the call. Within the project activities, Work Package 3 includes sensemaking. The third round for the pilot and cohort 2 city Zagreb began on 4 December 2025. At the webinar, alongside colleagues who support the work of the consortium and cities on their sensemaking journey, assistance is provided to pilot cities and their twin cities in various activities, solving problems, helping them connect with other cities and supporting networking. The NetZeroCities consortium consists of numerous institutions, consulting firms, universities and institutes. During the webinar, ActGREEN team members Tanja Dijan, Nebojša Ivančević and Natalia Halbauer presented the current status of the ActGREEN project in very brief form, as a poster. The webinar covered topics relevant to cohort 2 cities.
The webinar topics were:
- How can cities design and manage innovative financing models for climate measures — such as community climate funds — to mobilise private capital and enable citizen‑led climate action?
- Citizen engagement and everyday climate activities; how to empower citizen participation and energy and climate agencies for climate action (e.g., small incentives and pilots scaled into larger models for everyday citizen involvement)?
- How can cities build internal alignment with municipalities and strengthen transition teams to break down silos and create shared responsibility for climate action?
- How can cities accelerate the mobility transition — for example through electrification of heavy transport and machinery — by addressing data gaps, using innovative procurement and collaborating effectively with industry and other key partners?
- How can cities build effective multi‑actor (external) collaboration — by developing effective business plans, working with the private sector, NGOs, communities and other partners to co‑design and implement climate solutions and the energy transition?
The ActGREEN project team and pilot, together with the City of Zagreb, participated in Room 2 on the topic of citizen engagement, focusing on three subtopics explained in the poster and presented by Tanja Dijan and Nebojša Ivančević: promising solutions and actions; what we have learned; challenges and solutions identified during implementation; and what is useful or interesting for cohort cities. Attached are the poster and several photos confirming the interest of colleagues from other cities in participatory approaches, including colleagues from Bucharest, Trondheim, Poznań, Marseille, Helsingborg and others.
During the webinar, we also had the opportunity to hear from other cohort 2 cities participating in different groups and sensemaking discussions. Activities supported by the consortium and the programme provide an opportunity to exchange experiences, problems and solutions, hear good examples, learn about new and innovative information important for implementation and future city activities, and identify good partners for future project activities of the City of Zagreb.
