Today, we are incredibly honored to receive one of the highest recognitions for the work we have poured our minds, hands, and hearts into over the past five years. Today, Grønne Nabofællesskaber is receiving the Nordic Council Environment Prize for the organization’s ability to create local communities where people work together to take concrete steps to protect both the climate and biodiversity—through everything from green community dinners to planting pocket forests.
At Democracy x, we run the secretariat for Green Neighborhood Communities, and that’s why we’re celebrating this award today together with the board of Green Neighborhood Communities and active “practivists” across the country! Congratulations and thank you to all of you active citizens throughout the country who are taking responsibility for ensuring that more and more Danes have the opportunity to join green communities.
One of the major driving forces behind our work is seeing how Democracy x’s methods for organizing and mobilizing—as well as its ability to connect local communities with municipal climate initiatives—have, in just a few years, supported and helped Green Neighborhood Communities grow into a dynamic grassroots movement, which has grown to over 300 communities led by passionate local advocates across the country.
Together with C40 and our European partners, our goal in the next phase is to scale up the “neighborhood effect” beyond Denmark’s borders. We would like to extend our sincere thanks to the Nordic Council for helping to make this possible through this recognition.
Read the full nomination from the Nordic Council of Ministers here, in which they state, among other things:
“Green Neighborhood Communities have shown that community and local action make it easier and more enjoyable to get involved in addressing the climate and biodiversity crisis. This model can strengthen environmental efforts throughout the Nordic region by engaging citizens in practical action—one person at a time. The Green Neighborhood Communities have created an engaging and scalable movement in which thousands of citizens are turning climate ambitions into concrete actions in their daily lives. They demonstrate that the green transition begins collectively, locally, yet with global significance.”
Thank you to the KR Foundation for its support, which has made it possible for us to show that we in Denmark are ready to
