About the Green City


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What are the aims of the Green City?

Promoting more, high quality green space has the potential to bring enrichment across business and society.

We call this approach the ‘Green City Initiative’ aiming to write green in from the beginning of the planning process and put green space on an equal footing with buildings and infrastructure.

Evidence from a very wide range of economic, scientific and social studies supports the view that plants and green space make the difference.

The Green City philosophy is based on the concept that plants can bring social, economic and environmental benefits. And more. Plants reach right to the very heart of the matter – plants are key to our sense of well being, our sense of belonging to a place, to being at home. They are an antidote to our increasingly disjointed, and rootless lives.

Which do you prefer?

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How did the initiative develop?

PPH and other interested parties saw the need early on to reach planners, developers, decision-makers as well as consumers with information arising from our knowledge and understanding of nursery stock.

The aim was to develop a voice to move green space up the political and development agendas. The Green City initiative has the potenial to benefit the horticultural industry as a whole as well as bringing wider benefits to society.

Discussions at the world horticultural event in Holland, Floriade 2002, brought like-minded people together to advance this discussion in a more formal way. The Dutch Green Forum was set up at this time.

Following this meetings, presentations and symposia have been held in countries round Europe from the international IGA exhibition at Rostock in 2003 to the Euroflora meeting in Genova in April this year, from
Riga to Barcelona, Eden to the HTA annual conference in Southampton in 2006 and as far afield as the ANLA conference in Kentucky USA in January 2007 and on to the UK Garden Centre Association Conference in January 2008

All of this has contributed to building momentum and establishing support and a way forward for the Green City initiative.

Jan Habets, PPH MD and co-founder
of the initiative, at the Eden Project

The Green City philosophy states that green space does not cost money, but brings profit from a social, economic and environmental point of view.

Green space brings a wide range of benefits, from the potential of governments to slash budgets in specific areas such as health and public safety, to increased property values and improved employee productivity. This complete package of benefits, supported by scientific and economic data and the horticultural know-how to deliver comes together in the ‘Green City Philosophy’.

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How does the Green City initiative work to achieve it's goals?

The initiative has used the concept of establishing Green Forums in individual countries as a way of bringing together diverse partners, exchanging information and getting the ball rolling for developing projects and activities. It also gives weight to lobbying efforts. The first Green Forum was created in Holland in 2002. It now has 65 members, including architects and landscape architects, planners, developers, financial institutions, government ministries and consumer organisations, (one of which is similar to the AA and has c 4million members).
There is also now a well established Green Forum in Germany which includes a range of powerful partners across the horticultural industry and beyond.

Plus the initiative has an impressive list of supporting organisations and activities ongoing in a number countries.

Lobbying from Dutch Green Forum
led to Dutch Housing Minister
pledge for more urban green space

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Who currently funds this website and why?

Plant Publicity Holland (PPH), one of the founders of the Green City initiative.

PPH has existed for over fifty years. It's overall aim is the collective promotion of Dutch nursery stock in The Netherlands and abroad and establishing and maintaining a positive image for the Dutch nursery stock sector. PPH is active in both the consumer and landscaping/amenity markets working in 15 countries. The organsation seeks to work in active co-operation with national and regional associations and organisations.

The Green City initiative has the potential to be a powerful lobbying tool.
Jan Habets, one of the founders of the Green City initiative and Managing Director of Plant Publicity Holland sees on a daily basis what can be achieved. In his own words:
‘Through the Green Forums in Holland and Germany and the successes that they have had so far with the initiative, we have seen the effectiveness of developing a broad network and lobbying collectively to provide a structure within which delegates from different nations can meet, share information and build an international consensus'.