With sustainability and the environment topics at the top of every country’s priority list today, 100 European cities have taken a significant step forward to become communities that officially aim to become climate neutral by the 2030s. To achieve this goal, cities have come together in a lifestyle-changing steps challenge.
Walking is the most effective and simplest way for everyone to contribute to changes in the field of mobility. For this reason, Tauragė, which aims to become one of the 100 climate-neutral cities by 2030, initiated a challenge to the whole Europe. City invited other city mission participants to walk and unite the communities to seek the same goal – change the daily mobility habits.
Steps challenge for sustainability
The participants of the 100 Sustainable Cities Challenge are cities that are part of the European Commission’s official cities mission and aim to implement solutions that allow them to reduce their footprint on the environment to a minimum.
“From Germany to Slovakia, from France to Greece, dozens of European cities support and join the 100 Sustainable Cities Challenge. We all have a common goal, but we are convinced that the only way to achieve it is to unite urban communities to work together. Welcoming the European Mobility Week, we invite the residents of each of these 100 cities to change their daily movement habits in a more environmentally friendly direction and to join the fun cities walking challenge in the app #walk15”, says the mayor of Tauragė District Dovydas Kaminskas.
The 100 Most Sustainable Cities Challenge is hosted by #walk15, a free walking app open worldwide to anyone who wants to join. The challenge will start on the first day of European Mobility Week – 16 of September.
“In the first few hours of pre-registration alone, half of the 100 cities invited to participate in the challenge have signed up, and the number is steadily increasing. It’s amazing that cities such as Bordeaux in France, Antwerp and Brussels in Belgium, Copenhagen in Denmark, Barcelona in Spain and many others accept the initiative and share it with their community with great enthusiasm”, says Vlada Musvydaitė-Vilčiauskė, founder and CEO of the #walk15 app.
The steps will turn into 10,000 trees
The goal of the challenge is for everyone to cover a distance equal to 100 trips around the Earth in a month. At the end of the challenge, Tauragė district municipality will plant 100 real trees for each trip around the Earth. In this way, a forest of 100 European city steps will be born from 10,000 trees.
“With the project, we will aim not only to unite urban communities to change movement habits, but also to encourage increasing the time of daily physical activity, we will educate about the importance of cultivating sustainable habits”m says the mayor of Tauragė district.
As the organizers of the challenge point out, competing with other cities in steps is a fun and engaging way to change daily habits towards environmentally friendly goals.
The end of the challenge is planned for 16 of October 2022. At the end of the challenge, exclusive local sightseeing routes for the three most active cities will be created and placed on the #walk15 walking app.
Anyone who wants to walk for their city or favorite area can now join the 100 Sustainable Cities Challenge by clicking HERE.
