Europe -China Eco Cities Link Project

Europe-China Eco cities link project (EC-LINK) is a European Union funded project, a key element of the EU-China Partnership on Sustainable Urbanisation, which was signed by the European Commission and the Chinese government in May 2012.

It aims at assisting Chinese cities in implementing energy and resource-efficient measures by sharing European cities’ experiences in sustainable urbanisation. In fact, creating a platform of experience exchanging and cooperation between Chinese and European cities on low carbon/eco city development issues, through producing eco city tool boxes, knowledge platform, organizing city to city network units’ activities is a must. Meanwhile, providing training to Chinese related organizations and its staff on policy making, giving technical advices on specific sustainable urban development projects, learning from European cities good examples & techniques, strategy &methods, will contribute a lot to China sustainable urbanization.

In 2017, EC-Link project has organized various inter city labs in different Chinese pilot cities: on the theme of green buildings, green transport, low carbon urban planning, sustainable water management and solid waste management. These activities enhanced the communication between Chinese cities and European cities, which formed a solid base for the further cooperation. In 2018, the EC-LINK project emphasizes on the following activities: Green Building Training for small cities on promotion policy & techniques (low costs, high efficiency), pilot city cooperation with European cities on water management & flooding prevention, training on Municipal Green Finance etc.

Ms. Xiaocun Ruan(East West Urban Consultancy) has been appointed by GIZ (The German Society for International Cooperation) as a key expert on sustainable urban planning for this project for the coming period. Ms. Ruan will be in charge of communication among Chinese and European cities in order to enhance the cooperation among them.