How to Enter

The AIPH World Green City Awards competition is open to all city governments and local authorities which are legally defined and nationally recognised with local or sub-national government authority, and which are 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.

Entries will consist of a written statement, made in English, through an online portal and may be complemented by supporting evidence such as images, videos, publications (e.g. copy of a report), letters of support (e.g. from partners).

Eligibility criteria

Any city* around the world can submit entries to the award if the five eligibility criteria below are met:

• The submission must be made by the local authority governing the city – such as the Mayor’s or executive officer’s office or the relevant department.
• The initiative described in the award entry must have begun implementation in 2018 or later. If the initiative described is part of a longer-term approach, then the entry must only focus on and discuss results of the stage that has begun since 2018.
• The initiative described needs to be strategic in nature – ie: a policy and/or a programme leading to the delivery of a collection of related projects rather than a single project.
• The initiative described needs to have all, or a substantial amount of implementation funds secured.
• The initiative described should not feature genetically modified organisms or designated invasive alien plant species as defined by the Convention for Biodiversity.

*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.

2024 Awards timeline

14 October 2022: Launch of the award and call for expression of interest.

13 March 2023: Call for entries – the application guidelines and an offline version of the application submission form become available to help entry preparation.

15 September 2023: Application submission closes at 23.00 UTC.

6th February 2024: Additional information requested by the technical panel must be submitted

5th March 2024: Finalist cities announced. Formal invitations made to all finalist cities to attend the gala awards ceremony.

Early June 2024: Jury meets to select winners in each category and overall winner. The youth jury will also meet to select the winner of the Youth Award.

Jul/Aug 2024: Interviews of finalists for preparation of case studies.

Sep/Oct 2024: Award winners publicly announced at a gala award ceremony.

The entry process

To begin the submission process, you will need to create a city profile, which will allow you to gain access to the online portal where you can compile and prepare your submission over time, coming back an unlimited number of times to add/edit your entry.

Creating a profile is not an automatic submission. Instead, it simply allows you to access more information, including an offline version of the submission form to assist in preparing your entry. All entries will need to be submitted online before 15 September 2023, using this profile.

Once you have created a profile, you can use your login credentials to access the online portal each time you would like to add to or edit your entry/ies. You can add and save information to your submission, and come back to do so an unlimited number of times, before the submission deadline.