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Press release | 19.08.2016

The Mobile Green Living Room Roadshow – a feast for the senses

From Frankfurt to London to the banks of the Danube at the International Climate Alliance conference

Frankfurt. The Mobile Green Living Room will be touring Europe until 8 October – its appearance in Frankfurt from 19 to 21 August marks the next stop on its three-month tour, with subsequent showings slated for London, Antwerp, Brussels, Ljubljana, Zagreb and Krems. Today, Frankfurt‘s City Councillor for Environment Rosemarie Heilig invited journalists to take a seat in the living room and outlined Frankfurt’s Climate Fund, which will see some 10 million euros invested in the greening of roofs, facades, courtyards and other spaces. “We need more green spaces that improve well-being while curbing heat and noise, especially in the densely built neighbourhoods in and around the inner city.”

More than 70 percent of the European Union’s population currently lives in cities, where mitigation and adaptation to climate change are crucial to improving our quality of life. The Mobile Green Living Room does just this in several important ways. Bursting with scent and colour, the Green Living Room not only offers a social space for people to meet, but also provides a habitat for wildlife, reduces heat islands, diminishes storm water runoff, reduces noise pollution and absorbs carbon dioxide. The Mobile Green Living Room is a unique exhibition that allows people to experience green infrastructure with a very hands on approach. It gives local authorities the opportunity to appreciate the visual and aesthetic benefits a Green Living Room can offer urban locations and assess the functional use of green infrastructure.

The idea was developed in the German town of Ludwigsburg within the framework of the EU-funded project known as TURAS (Transitioning towards Urban Resilience and Sustainability). The city administration wanted to create a green oasis for its residents in the inner city district but had little space to spare – only an old car park.  It was there that the now popular Green Living Room was built.

The TURAS project aims to find creative ideas and solutions for a sustainable development of the urban environment. To this end, TURAS partners engage in a variety of topics ranging from circular economy to integrated flood management, balancing urban expansion and many more.

Climate Alliance, the world’s largest city network dedicated to climate action with over 1700 members, is responsible for the dissemination of TURAS solutions towards local authorities. The Mobile Green Living Room Roadshow is thus stopping in a number of Climate Alliance member cities such as Bonn, Frankfurt am Main and Vienna. In Krems, Austria, visitors will be able to experience the exhibit during International Climate Alliance Conference from 5 to 8 October at the IMC University of Applied Sciences.

Links

Contacts
Sarah Mekjian, T. +49 69 717 139 20, s.mekjian(at)climatealliance.org
Dr. Andreas Kress, T. +49 69 717 139 33, a.kress(at)climatealliance.org