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City of London’s climate resilient planting is the focus of September’s AIPH Green City Briefing

More and more cities are recognising and utilising the power of plants in urban climate change adaptation and mitigation measures. London is one such city; its climate action strategy is the focus of the upcoming AIPH Green City Briefing at 1pm BST on 12th September 2023.

Organised by the International Association of Horticultural Producers (AIPH) in collaboration with the Worshipful Company of Gardeners (WCoG) and sponsor Expo 2023 Doha Qatar, the AIPH Green City Briefings 2022/23 are a series of one-hour webinars focusing on cities around the world that demonstrate significant progress in including plants and nature in their city’s form and function.

The AIPH Green City Briefings were launched in 2021 in collaboration with the Worshipful Company of Gardeners lead by the enthusiasm of Heather Barrett-Mold OBE, Master of the Company in that year. The success of this first series encouraged Heather to motivate the Company to continue their support of the AIPH Green City Briefings in 2022-23, and AIPH welcomes Nicholas Woolf OBE, 2023 Master of the Worshipful Company of Gardeners, as MC for the September 2023 session.

Visit the Event Page to register for the Briefing.

The AIPH Green City Briefing on 12th September 2023 is a follow on from the briefing session of December 2021, which explored the implementation of climate resilient planting in the City of London Corporation, the local authority for the square mile in the U.K.’s capital. Now, almost 2 years on, hear about the progress of the City of London’s commitment to adaptation to climate change with nature at its core.

The first speaker will be Dr Henrik Sjöman, a scientific curator at Gothenburg Botanical Garden and teacher at the Swedish University of Agricultural Science. Henrik’s research examines the selection and diversification of urban forestry, understanding plants’ ability to grow in different urban environments, and discovering plants’ capacity for delivering different ecosystem services. This presentation will cover recent research published in HortScience with co-authors Dr Andrew Hirons and Sanna Ignell.

The second speaker for the Briefing is Gordon Roy, the District Surveyor and Environmental Resilience Director at the City of London Corporation. Gordon is involved with the implementation of the climate action strategy in the City of London, including the pioneering Riverside Strategy and a series of pilot projects which will test resilience measures in the City’s public realm. Gordon initially presented the strategy in the December 2021 Briefing, which can be viewed on-demand here.

Following these insightful presentations, Nicholas Woolf will lead a panel style discussion, taking questions from the audience, and from those posted on the AIPH Global Green City Forum.

The subject of this webinar, as with all AIPH Green City Briefings 2022-23, resonates with the theme of sponsor Expo 2023 Doha, Qatar, in showing a commitment to creating better spaces for city residents. Understanding that community engagement is part of success, Expo 2023 Doha Qatar recognises that, without a change in the mindset of the people and their perspectives on the future, the sustainability of any endeavour would not be possible. City greening, particularly in arid climates, is an increasingly urgent topic, because it can present answers to global water, energy, and food scarcity. Expo 2023 Doha Qatar is open from 2nd October 2023 to 28th March 2024 and anticipates 3 million local and international visitors.

For more information and to register, visit the Event Page.


Hannah Pinnells
Digital Marketing & Communications Executive
hannah.pinnells@aiph.org