AIPH presents the Champions of Green Cities
As the world celebrated Earth Day on 22nd April 2021, AIPH was also marking the day by inspiring people to think about the successful integration of nature into the built environment.
The AIPH 2021 International Green City conference brought together a worldwide audience of professionals, organisations, city councils and government administrations to hear how international experts on greening urban spaces have met this challenge.
Through the AIPH’s Green City principles, which promote plants’ essential role in creating vibrant urban areas in which people and businesses can thrive. Our environment, human wellbeing, social cohesion and economies are all improved by intelligently designed green space.
At the AIPH 2021 Green City Conference, hear about innovations and advances in city greening from our Champions of Green Cities. We had a line-up of expert international speakers who:
- Shared best practice and experiences of how they increase living green in cities.
- Presented innovative thinking in how living green shapes city form and function
- Described case studies of cross-disciplinary benefits from city greening
- Launched the AIPH World Green City Awards 2022
- Launched the AIPH Green City Guidelines 2020
Download the programme
12:00 Virtual exhibition and networking opportunities on the Hopin platform
13:00 Welcome by Chair – Mr Tim Briercliffe, AIPH Secretary General
13:05 Welcome speech – Mr Bill Hardy, Chair of AIPH Green City Committee
13:15 Grids and Greenery 1984 – 2021 – Prof Rob Adams, City Design, City of Melbourne, shares his insights about the transformation of central Melbourne since the 1980s, and how this influences how cities evolve to recover from shocks and seize opportunities.
13:45 Q&A
13:55 Launch of the AIPH World Green City Awards
14:10 BREAK
14:20
The Vienna Story: Planning and managing green transitions in the Worlds Number 1 in liveability by Ms Maria Vassilakou, founder of Vienna Solutions and former Vice Mayor of Vienna.
14:40 Greening Cities – a Climate of Change by Mr Peter Massini, Director of Future Nature Consulting Ltd.
15:00 Women4Climate Toronto: Empowering the Next Generation of Leaders by Toronto Councillor Dr Jennifer McKelvie.
15:20 Q&A
15:30 Biophilic Cities: Growing a Culture of Biophilia by Professor Tim Beatley, founder of Biophilic Cities.
15:50 CitiesWithNature – engagement platform of choice for Champions of Green Cities by Ms Ingrid Coetzee, Director of Biodiversity, Nature & Health for ICLEI Africa.
16:10 Q&A- including David Maddox, Founder and Editor of The Nature of Cities
16:20 Expo 2023 Doha, Qatar: Green Desert. Better Environment.
16:25 BREAK
16:30 AIPH announces the AIPH 2020 Green City Guidelines – Dr Audrey Timm
16:45 Case Study: Barcelona – presented by Ms Anne Jaluzot
17:00 Case Study: Almere – presented by Mr Niek Roozen
17:15 The Science of Tree Selection, Dr Andrew Hirons
17:30 Q&A
17:45 Closing remarks – Mr Bill Hardy, Chair of AIPH Green City Committee
18:00 Virtual exhibition and networking opportunities on the Hopin platform
19:00 ENDS
Keynote speaker: Prof. Rob Adams AM, City Design, City of Melbourne
Since joining the City of Melbourne in 1985, Rob Adams has led the rejuvenation of central Melbourne. He received the Prime Minister’s Environmentalist of the Year in 2008, the Order of Australia in 2007, and the Australian Institute of Architect’s National President’s Award in 2018, and his CoM City Design team have received over 150 international, state and local awards.
During this conference, he will share his insights into how cities evolve to recover from shocks and seize opportunities. This opens the conversation for innovative city leaders to share their successes in the main conference session.
Mag. Maria Vassilakou, MSc.
Maria Vassilakou served as Vienna’s Vice Mayor – responsible for Urban Planning, Traffic & Transport, Climate Protection, Energy and Public Participation from November 2010 to July 2019. She is an experienced urban leader, devoted to open, inclusive and green cities, with a passion for urban transformation processes leading to sustainable change.
Maria Vassilakou envisages cities as open, green, affordable, family friendly and diverse places for life. In her 9 years serving as Deputy Mayor Maria Vassilakou was responsible for a vast transformation agenda comprising numerous innovative projects, contributing substantially to Viennas Nr1 position in all major international livability rankings within the last decade.
Having founded Vienna Solutions, Maria Vassilakou now works worldwide as a strategist and global advisor on urban transformation and transition management.
Mr Peter Massini, MCIEEM, Director of Future Nature Consulting Ltd
Peter has spent the majority of his 30-year professional career as an urban ecologist and green infrastructure policy maker. For the past 10 years he has led on green infrastructure and natural environment policy for the Greater London Authority, successfully embedding a policy framework in the London Plan and London Environment Strategy that aims to make London a greener, more liveable and resilient city.
During this conference, he will present an overview of greening metrics that are used in the policy, discussing some of the challenges and drawbacks and how effective they are in practice.
Dr Jennifer McKelvie, Councillor for City of Toronto
Jennifer McKelvie is the Toronto City Councillor for Ward 25, Scarborough Rouge-Park, representing over 100,000 constituents in the City’s most eastern riding. Before being elected in 2018, Jennifer worked as a professional Geoscientist and managed research partnerships at the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR).
At Toronto City Council, Jennifer serves as Chair of the Infrastructure and Environment Committee. In that capacity, she is taking an active role in the City of Toronto’s climate change, resilience and ravine strategies.
During the conference, she will give insights from her experience in inspiring the next generation of climate leaders through the C40 Women for Climate mentorship programme.
Prof. Tim Beatley, founder of Biophilic Cities
Dr. Tim Beatley is the Teresa Heinz Professor of Sustainable Communities, in the Department of Urban and Environmental Planning, School of Architecture at the University of Virginia, where he has taught for the last twenty-five years.
During the conference, he will explain the power of community in making cities more nature focussed, and the influence of biophilia in inspiring change.
Ms Ingrid Coetzee, Director of Biodiversity, Nature & Health for ICLEI Africa
Ingrid is a governance and sustainability expert with special interest in nature-based solutions, ecosystem services, nature and health, and biodiversity mainstreaming and governance systems. She has over 30 years’ work experience of all government levels and joined ICLEI Africa and Cities Biodiversity Center in December 2016.
Ingrid represents ICLEI and the local and subnational government constituency on the CBD Informal Advisory Group on Mainstreaming of Biodiversity, and on UNEP’s Major Groups Facilitating Committee.
During the conference, she will describe the organisation’s projects on mainstreaming nature, its benefits, and nature-based solutions into urban planning and decision-making in cities and city-regions thereby helping them become healthier, and more resilient and liveable places.
Dr Audrey Timm, Technical Advisor to AIPH
Dr Audrey Timm is a horticultural scientist specialised in ornamental horticulture. Spanning many aspects of horticulture, Audrey’s career has covered academic research in South Africa, industry support, training and on-farm research and development in Australia, and promoting the connection between design and ecology in urban landscapes with the University of Sheffield in the UK.
Since joining AIPH as Technical Advisor in early 2019, Audrey leads their Green City initiative with the purpose of increasing the quality and quantity of living green in urban environments, and nurturing a strategic shift in city form and function. Audrey also manages AIPH’s programmes in Plant Health, Sustainability, and Novelty Protection. Through knowledge exchange, advocacy, and networking, Audrey supports AIPH’s position as the world’s champion for the power of plants.
During the conference, she will introduce the AIPH 2021 Green City Guidelines – an essential digital resource providing evidence that supports innovative policy and practice in green cities.
Ms Anne Jaluzot, MSc
Anne is an urban planner, with 19 years of experience primarily gathered in the US and the UK in environmentally led approaches to urban policy, design and regeneration.
Anne now works as an independent consultant continuing to advise on, assess, facilitate or lead the development of tools, strategies, projects and knowledge on urban greening. She conducted the research and writing of the Trees and Design Action Group (TDAG)’s latest publications: Trees in the Townscape: A Guide for Decision Makers (2012) and Trees in Hard Landscapes: A Guide for Delivery (2014) – two action-oriented urban forestry best practice guides on using trees in 21st century cities.
During the conference, she will deliver a case study of Barcelona, the city which changed traffic patterns, replacing roadways with living green, thereby increasing social interactions and reducing pollution.
Mr Niek Roozen, Advisor for Niek Roozen Landscapes
Niek Roozen has been a landscape architect since 1974. Over the years, he and his staff have worked, both nationally and internationally, on a variety of projects such as city parks, horticulture and garden exhibitions and theme parks.
In 1986 Niek founded Niek Roozen Landscapes. The office started to grow internationally when they won the commission as ‘Chief designer Floriade 2002’.
During the conference, he will introduce the power of plant selection in dominating landscape performance, using Almere as a case study for motivating plant selection linked to function, and the multi-functionality of urban greening.
Dr Andrew Hirons, Senior Lecturer in Arboriculture and Urban Forestry at University Centre Myerscough
As well as having a range of higher education teaching responsibilities on modules relating to tree biology, tree establishment and urban tree management, Andrew is also actively involved in research. Primarily this research is motivated by the need to create resilient urban forests that meet the needs of society. He has particular expertise in species selection, publishing a number of papers evaluating how functional plant traits can better inform tree selection for urban environments. He also led the NERC Green Infrastructure Innovation project that resulted in the TDAG Tree selection for green infrastructure: A guide for specifiers. This guidance document is already widely respected across the green infrastructure community. It has been downloaded approximately 20,000 times and was a finalist in the Landscape Institute Digital Innovation Award in 2019. Andrew co-authored Applied Tree Biology (Wiley-Blackwell), a textbook focusing on the integration of science into the management of trees.
Mr Bill Hardy, AIPH Green City Chair
Bill has had many roles and responsibilities within the horticulture industry over the years and has always had an avid involvement in industry professional development, education, and certification.
Bill is active with several industry associations including: the Canadian Nursery Landscape Association – Communication Director and 2nd Vice President; HortEducationBC – Founding Director and current Business Manager; Canadian Garden Council – Founding Director and CNLA Representative; International Association of Horticulture Producers – Chair Green City Committee; and the Green Cities Foundation – Director at Large
During the conference, will bring the focus onto the AIPH Green City initiative and how the content of this programme integrates with the AIPH vision as the world’s champion for the power of plants.
