Frequently Asked Questions

AIPH is looking to reward nature-orientated solutions that harvest the power of plants and associated ecosystems services to help address the major challenges facing cities today – or tomorrow. Specifically, we seek strategic initiatives that are bold, pursue a meaningful impact, are being successfully implemented, have potential to further scale or spread to other cities, and exemplify resilience in how they are conducted.

Entries for the AIPH World Green City Awards 2026 must fit these objectives:

1. Be an initiative that demonstrates an ambitious approach and showcases a city-wide vision and commitment to making the city greener, healthier, and more sustainable.
2. Be an initiative which comprises a city-wide greening programme or set of projects, rather than an individual project.
3. Draw attention to a specific programme/initiative within the city’s overall greening strategy, while demonstrating how that initiative/programme is linked to the city’s overall green ambition and vision.
4. Demonstrate feasibility and proven success in implementation with measurable, and quantifiable impact.
5. Demonstrate that a significant portion of the initiative has been implemented over the last 5 years, even if there is still some implementation remaining beyond 2026.

To be eligible, such strategic initiatives must be implemented within a city. A city is defined as ‘a single urban area/human settlement, large or small, which, along with its surrounding expanse, is nationally recognised as being under the jurisdiction of a single legally defined local or sub-national government authority.’ If your entry involves a multi-city initiative, your submission must be based on the activities in your city as the primary city. You may refer to activities in other cities as ‘ripple effects’ of the initiative beyond the primary city.

All submissions should be compiled and submitted by a suitable representative acting on behalf of the city authority. The city authority is the legally defined and nationally recognised local or subnational government authority which is mandated to govern and undertake and implement strategic policy and planning initiatives within the single urban area/human settlement and surrounding expanse under its jurisdiction.

A suitable representative of the city authority is a technical or political staff member or official from either the Mayor’s or executive officer’s office or a relevant department who is comfortable in their mandate to act on behalf of the city authority. Any such staff member or official can initiate the entry by registering an account on the online portal. However, all entries, at the time of submission on or before 15 September 2025 must be accompanied by a Mayoral Declaration, signed and stamped by a signatory authorised by national law to legally represent the city. Typically, this person is the Mayor or Deputy-Mayor of the city, or can be another senior political representative who is in charge of international cooperation or sustainable development.

Yes, and this will need to be clearly documented in your entry. You will also be asked to nominate up to two of the most relevant award categories you would like your entry to be considered for. For 2026, there are seven award categories:

• Living Green for Health and wellbeing: Addressing the medical, behavioural, and social determinants of health for residents.
• Living Green for Climate Change: Tackling the root causes and effects of climate change in order to build more liveable and resilient cities.
• Living Green for Urban Infrastructure and Liveability: Promoting and supporting nature-positive lifestyles for all city residents, visitors and businesses, through a well planned, designed, and maintained built environment.
• Living Green for Biodiversity and Urban Ecosystem Restoration: Addressing the loss of species, habitats, ecosystem health, and genetic diversity.
• Living Green for Water: Ensuring that water resources are safeguarded and wisely used, with clean water available to all while also protecting residents from flooding risks.
• Living Green for Social Cohesion and Inclusive Communities: Fostering belonging, trust and inter-generational as well as cross-cultural relationships to prevent exclusion, marginalisation and violence.
• Living Green for Urban Agriculture and Food Systems: Creating strategies and practices that build the resilience of city food supplies to increase employment and nutritional outcomes, reduce poverty and address urban environmental degradation.

Before you can begin the process of compiling your entry/ies, you will need to create an account and sign into the online submission portal (Oxford Abstracts). Please take note of the password you set and try to remember it. Each time you sign in thereafter, you will be directed to your submission dashboard, where you can add a “New Submission” to start compiling an entry and where you can view and edit the existing entries/submissions that are in-progress. Each time you visit the online submission portal, logging in to your Oxford Abstracts account will allow you to access any information pertaining to your entry/ies which was previously loaded, all of which is automatically saved. You can edit existing information and add new information each time you visit the portal. You may submit multiple entries from your city under the same account. You can add multiple entries on your dashboard using the “New Submission” button. You can see all of your entries and access each one through your dashboard. For each entry, you will need to complete a separate online entry form.

To assist with your entry preparation, an offline version of the online entry form is made available to you on page 2 of the online entry form. Creating an account and starting the entry compilation process on the online portal is not an obligation to submit an entry at a later stage. Instead, it allows you to learn more about the entry questions for ease of preparing your entry/ies and in deciding whether to proceed with making a submission. After your city has started compiling an entry, or multiple entries, you can come back to the online submission portal an unlimited number of times to add info/complete your entry – until the 15 September 2025, when entries close.

There is no limit when it comes to the number of initiatives that a city/local authority can submit. However, each initiative must be submitted through a separate online entry form. Additionally, any given initiative must be submitted only once.

This is a good thing! The greater the significance of the initiative and the wider its range of impacts, the better, since this is something we take into account in the entry evaluation process. These wide-ranging outcomes – whether fitting within the award categories or reaching beyond – should be documented in the entry. For each entry submitted, you will be able to nominate up to two categories (a primary and a secondary choice) in which the entry will be scored and judged.

We recommend that you limit overlap between categories if you are submitting multiple entries. Remember that entries in the same category will be competing against each other. We also recommend selecting categories for which you have compiled the best evidence of results.

Any city that was a finalist may not enter the same initiative in any future edition of the AIPH World Green City Awards. Any other city that has previously entered and not been a finalist may enter again, and may submit the same initiative as previously submitted, however you are encouraged to review your entry and submit a revised version. Please look at the case studies of previous winners to learn what makes a successful entry.

No, participation to the award is entirely free. We are not charging an entry fee in recognition that cities will commit resources towards putting together the application.

No, the entry has to be submitted by the local authority, but they can do so in association with a key delivery partner who will then also be featured in the award recognition should the joint entry win.

All online entries must be accompanied by a Mayoral Declaration that confirms that the city supports the entry. The Mayoral Declaration is provided within the online entry form, and must be signed by the Mayor of the city or an alternative and suitable representative of the designated city authority.

No. All eligible cities are invited to submit an online entry. As soon as you create an account on the online submission portal, you will have access to the award submission system, and an offline version of the online entry form to assist you in preparing your entry.

Yes, all cities are required to put forward their submission through an online entry form. To enter, cities are required to create an account on our dedicated online submission portal to gain access to the online entry form. AIPH offers support in answering any questions you may have about your submission(s) and the award process.

English only.

You will receive a notification from AIPH acknowledging that your submission has been received.

All submissions will be reviewed and evaluated after the deadline for submission (15th September 2025, 23:00 UTC).

AIPH will notify the contact person identified in the application in January 2026 if additional information is required. Finalist cities may be asked to provide this complementary information within 30 days.

Finalist cities will be notified by early March 2026 and invited to take part in the awards ceremony at a gala event in the autumn of 2026. At this gala event the category winners will be announced to the world and the Grand Winner will be awarded the honour of winning the AIPH World Green City Awards 2026.

There are many benefits to entering the AIPH World Green City Awards. It is the first international competition that cities enter to:

• Gain recognition for the greening they have done and the benefits to their city
• Promote their city at an international level.
• Inspire a global movement for greener cities.
• Demonstrate that their city is highly desirable to live and work in.
• Showcase how urban nature can improve the health of citizens, increase job opportunities, stimulate economic development, and strengthen greening regulations.
• Demonstrate how ambitious local actions contribute to achieving global agenda.

By entering, cities stand a chance to:

• Have their initiatives featured on the AIPH website and integrated into the AIPH Green City Case Study Collection. All Finalists will be featured.
• Win an award certificate and a trophy. Winners can nominate key partners and key staff so that additional award certificates can be prepared in their name.
• Gain global recognition and profiling opportunities. Winners will be promoted via AIPH and the World Green City Awards partners’ and sponsors’ media channels.
• Have their city’s work displayed to a significant global audience in the AIPH pavilion of an International Horticultural Expo.
• Receive up to 4 complimentary tickets to the gala event of the Awards ceremony.