Toulouse, France
City population: 703385
Duration: 2015 – ongoing
Implementation status: Ongoing
Scale: Meso-scale: Regional, metropolitan and urban level
Project area: unknown
Type of area: Other
Last updated: November 2021

The Toulouse based project Green My City is a community collective focused on promoting sustainable consumption and creating a sustainable environment, (Ref. 2) It anticipates constructing thousands of square meters of organic vegetable gardens on the roofs of the city of Toulouse, saving 50 tons of CO2 emissions per year. The project defines itself as a prospective tool, which intervenes in the stream of gardening initiatives: it maps, selects, and then accompanies the initiatives (Ref. 1). The project supports the realisation of environmental initiatives by engaging citizens, communities, businesses and designers to help create an urban oasis (Ref. 23).

Overview

Nature-based solution

  • Nature on buildings (external)
  • Green roofs
  • Community gardens and allotments
  • Community gardens

Key challenges

  • Climate action for adaptation, resilience and mitigation (SDG 13)
  • Climate change adaptation
  • Climate change mitigation
  • Green space, habitats and biodiversity (SDG 15)
  • Green space creation and/or management
  • Inclusive and effective governance (SDG 16)
  • Inclusive governance
  • Social justice, cohesion and equity (SDG 10)
  • Social justice and equity
  • Social interaction
  • Environmental education
  • Health and well-being (SDG 3)
  • Creation of opportunities for recreation
  • Sustainable consumption and production (SDG 12)
  • Sustainable consumption
  • Sustainable production

Focus

Creation of new green areas

Project objectives

The Green My City project aims to encourage gardening initiatives in Toulouse in order to locally produce organic food, reduce energy consumption of vegetated buildings, increase local food distribution systems and reinforce social links by fostering urban gardening (Ref. 2). Project objectives include: Greening cities and especially urban agriculture in order to increase the resilience of the territories to climate change and the scarcity of resources; Improve the quality of life of urban dwellers, especially the most vulnerable; Strengthen the social bond through actions and meetings around these themes (Ref. 2). The project also suggests it hopes to federate and humanize the city's green initiatives, and in principle, the project aims to use green in cities to mitigate and adapt to climate change (Ref. 8) and reduce urban island heating effects (Ref. 22).

Implementation activities

The My Green City's open data tool hosts a collaborative web platform linking future volunteer gardens, educational kits, and accompanying projects (Ref. 1). The project has therefore involved itself in different projects, (Ref. 6, 11) workshops, conferences, plantations, (Ref. 14) tours (Ref. 25) and initiatives throughout the city since starting in 2015. This included the 48 hour citywide initiative of 30 associations on March 17th 2017, implemented as a way of decentralising the creation of green spaces, edible landscapes and urban agriculture (Ref. 5, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17). An example is the residence of Tibaous where inhabitants replanted fruit trees and aromatic plants (Ref. 4). An ephemeral urban vegetable garden was created at the square of Charles-de-Gaulle by the association Reflets meanwhile. Other activities were workshops on permaculture, creating wooden refuges to promote biodiversity, a balcony gardening workshop, sessions on cultivating wasteland, and making green graffitti using moss (Ref. 14). "Thousands of square meters of organic vegetable gardens on the roofs of the city of Toulouse, saving 50 tonnes of C02 per year. Designed to fight against urban heat islands, the Toulouse team's project Green My City won the national C3 Challenge" (Ref. 1).

Climate-focused activities

Climate change adaptation:

  • Increase or improve urban vegetation cover to help reduce outdoor temperature

Climate change mitigation:

  • Implement solutions to help reducing energy consumption or support the use of sustainable energy resources

Main beneficiaries

  • Citizens or community groups

Governance

Management set-up

  • Led by non-government actors

Type of initiating organisation

  • Private sector/corporate actor/company
  • Citizens or community group

Participatory approaches/ community involvement

  • Co-planning (e.g. stakeholder workshops, focus groups, participatory mapping)
  • Taskforce groups
  • Dissemination of information and education
  • Consultation (e.g. workshop, surveys, community meetings, town halls)
  • Joint implementation (e.g. tree planting)
  • Co-management/Joint management

Details on the roles of the organisations involved in the project

The Green My City project is a community collective that defines itself as a prospective tool, which intervenes in the stream of gardening initiatives: it maps, selects, and then accompanies. It therefore elects representatives - companies, community, social housing - who have been previously chosen thanks to the development of an algorithm based on open data concerning the orientation of roofs and adapted structures. To refine the prospects of development, Météo France will also bring its expertise on the urban climate, and pollution to the project. It was also reported in 2015 the project was vying for the financial support of outside benefactors (Première Brique and la Mêlée numérique) to consolidate the viability of the project; (Ref. 1) developer of social innovations Première Brique have since been reported as having joined the project (Ref. 10).

Project implemented in response to ...

... an EU policy or strategy? Unknown
... a national policy or strategy? Unknown
... a local policy or strategy? Yes (The project is driven as a response to the city of Toulouse's Climate Plan. (1, 20, 21))

Financing

Total cost

Unknown

Source(s) of funding

  • Unknown

Type of funding

  • Unknown

Non-financial contribution

Type of non-financial contribution
  • Provision of land
  • Provision of goods
  • Provision of labour
Who provided the non-financial contribution?
  • Citizens (e.g. volunteering)

Impacts and Monitoring

Environmental impacts

  • Climate change
  • Lowered local temperature
  • Enhanced carbon sequestration
  • Green space and habitat
  • Increased green space area
  • Reduced biodiversity loss

Economic impacts

  • Increase in agricultural production (for profit or not)

Socio-cultural impacts

  • Social justice and cohesion
  • Improved access to urban green space
  • Increased access to healthy/affordable food
  • Increased sustainability of agriculture practices
  • Education
  • Increased support for education and scientific research
  • Increased knowledge of locals about local nature

Type of reported impacts

Achieved impacts

Presence of formal monitoring system

Unknown

Presence of indicators used in reporting

No evidence in public records

Presence of monitoring/ evaluation reports

No evidence in public records

Availability of a web-based monitoring tool

Yes

References

(1) Viard, Virginie Mailles. (2015). "Toulouse. Green My City : des jardins potagers sur les toits toulousains". Available at: Source link (Accessed: October 17, 2020).
(2) GreenMyCity. [no date]. "GreenMyCity". Available at: Source link (Accessed: October 17, 2020).
(3) Rayssac, Louis. (2017). "La Ville rose ne laisse pas encore assez de place aux espaces verts". Available at: Source link (Accessed: October 17, 2020).
(4) Colin, Beatrice. (2017). "Toulouse: Jardins potagers, paysage comestible... l'agriculture urbaine prend racine". Available at: Source link (Accessed: October 17, 2020).
(5) HAPPYCULTORS' trilingual blog. [no date]. "Étape 3 de mon tour de France des pionniers de l’agriculture naturelle : Toulouse & le Gers". Available at: Source link (Accessed: October 17, 2020).
(6) Source link. (2015). "La COP21 en données (4/4) : Vers une ville plus verte et organisée de façon circulaire". Available at: Source link (Accessed: October 17, 2020).
(7) Partageons les Jardins! (2017). "La biodiversité au jardin". Available at: Source link (Accessed: October 17, 2020).
(8) Agro-écologie. (2017). "Toulouse accueillera les 48 heures de l'agriculture". Available at: Source link (Accessed: October 17, 2020).
(9) Source link. (2017). "ReVue d’actu de 11h11 – jeudi 23 février 2017". Available at: Source link (Accessed: October 17, 2020).
(10) Balerdi, Claire. (2016). "Green my city". Available at: Source link (Website not available in 2020).
(11) Colin, Beatrice. (2016). "Toulouse: Et si des jardinières partagées poussaient au coin des rues". Available at: Source link (Accessed: October 17, 2020).
(12) eventbu. (2017). "Les 48h de l'Agriculture Urbaine Toulouse | Toulouse, France | Friday, 17. March 2017". Available at: Source link (Accessed: October 17, 2020).
(13) MNMS. [no date]. "EN CE MOMENT CHEZ MNMS". Available at: Source link (Accessed: October 17, 2020).
(14) Russeil, Delphine. (2017). "Potager éphémère, green graffiti : le Top 10 des rdv des 48 h de l’agriculture urbaine, à Toulouse". Available at: Source link (Accessed: October 17, 2020).
(15) Colin, Beatrice. (2017). "Toulouse: Un week-end pour devenir le roi du jardinage". Available at: Source link (Accessed: October 17, 2020).
(16) mipygreen. (2017). "Blagnac accueillera les 48 heures de l’agriculture !" Available at: Source link (Accessed: October 17, 2020).
(17) Ortega, Christian. (2017). "LES 48H À TOULOUSE PORTRAIT #4". Available at: Source link (Accessed: October 17, 2020).
(18) GreenMyCity (n.d.). "Initiatives urbaines". Available at Source link (Accessed: October 17, 2020).
(19) Varax, Aurélie de. (2015). "Cop 21 : le Climate Change Challenge (C3) entre en phase deux". Available at: Source link (Accessed: October 17, 2020).
(20) European Commission. [no date]. "City Profile: Toulouse Métropole - France". Available at: Source link (Accessed: October 17, 2020).
(21) Toulouse Metropole. [no date]. "Le Plan Climat Air Énergie territorial". Available at: Source link (Website not available in 2020).
(22) OCCITANIE Pyrénées Méditerranée. (2016). MA RÉGION, MON NOUVEL HORIZON: UN PROJET EN GERME : JARDINER SUR LES TOITS. Journal de la nouvelle Région - N02 - Juillet/Août 2016. (Document attached).
(23) K.S. (2017). TOULOUSE LA VERTE: DESSINE-MOI UNE OASIS URBAINE. 12 MAI 2017 - TOULOUSE - LE FIGARO MAGAZINE. (Document attached).
(24) MNMS. (2015). Climate Change Challenge. (Document attached).
(25) Dumate, Camille. (2017). Agricultures Urbaines Durables : Vecteur pour la Transition Ecologique. (Document attached).