Summit Programme

This site visit is a dedicated visit for political representatives only, connecting Summit commitments to local action in Cork City.

This site visit offers a walking or cycling exploration of one of Cork’s most vibrant blue-green corridors, showcasing how greenways, play spaces, and biodiversity-rich environments can support active, healthy living.
Participants will experience how the Marina’s connected pathways and public spaces encourage sustainable mobility, recreation, and community use of the waterfront.

The visit also includes a unique cultural highlight at Páirc Uí Chaoimh (a stadium serving as the official home of Cork Gaelic Athletics Association), where participants will enjoy a live hurling demonstration, celebrating Ireland’s national sport and its strong links to community, identity, and wellbeing.

Together, this visit demonstrates how high-quality public space, sport, and nature can enhance health, connection, and place-making, creating inclusive environments that support both people and planet

This visit showcases how a city centre street will be transformed into a people-centred, healthy and climate resilient place in partnership with the Go Green Next (EU Horizon) project. The visit will also afford an opportunity to visit the International Garden in Blackrock.

Starting with a visit to Cork Migrant Centre’s International Garden, delegates will learn how Sanctuary Catering, the Sanctuary Garden, and wider social enterprise initiatives play an important role in linking social inclusion with climate action in practical and socially inclusive ways. Back on Douglas Street, the Lantern Project will showcase the work, passions and music of their lifelong learners from their home in Nano Nagle Place.

 Next door in UCC’s School of Architecture, Participants will explore plans for pedestrianisation, active travel, urban greening, and inclusive engagement, including a Virtual Reality experience and engagement with local businesses adopting sustainable practices.

A site visit to Mayfield and The Glen showcasing how community organisations, voluntary groups and service providers work together to promote healthier, more sustainable and resilient communities. In Mayfield, participants will visit an exhibition at Newbury House highlighting the wide range of community services, local partnerships and interagency collaborations that support social inclusion, culture, health and wellbeing.

 In The Glen, participants will explore how food, health and environmental initiatives come together through community-led programmes, shared spaces, community gardening poly tunnels, outdoor water bottle refill stations, walking and cycling routes, and access to green spaces.

The visit demonstrates how integrated approaches to health, food and the environment can strengthen community wellbeing, encourage active lifestyles, and deliver meaningful outcomes for both people and place.

This site visit to Mahon showcases a neighbourhood-based approach to climate and health, bringing together retrofitting, active travel, and community growing.

Centred around Mahon Community Centre, Mahon Community Development Project (CDP), and the Community Garden, participants will explore how local initiatives are working to create healthier, more sustainable and inclusive places to live. 

The visit highlights how energy- efficient housing, accessible walking and cycling routes, and shared green spaces can support low-carbon living, improved wellbeing, and stronger community connections. Through local action and partnerships, Mahon demonstrates how climate solutions can be embedded in everyday life, delivering benefits for both people and place.

This site visit to Ballyphehane and Togher will begin in the award-winning Togher Community Garden, a vibrant, community-led space that brings together people of all ages to engage in food growing, biodiversity, and environmental action. The garden demonstrates how local green spaces can support wellbeing, social connection, and climate awareness.
Participants will then be welcomed into the Ballyphehane Community Development Project that supports and empowers people of all ages. Visitors will find out about the Cork City Age Friendly EnergyCloud pilot project, an innovative initiative addressing energy poverty through the redistribution of surplus renewable energy.

The final stop on this tour brings delegates to the home of the Ballyphehane Community Association home of the Ballyphehane Sustainable Energy Community.

Together, these experiences highlight how climate action, social inclusion, and community development can work hand in hand—supporting vulnerable and older populations, improving health outcomes, and strengthening neighbourhood resilience. Ballyphehane and Togher provide a strong example of how local initiatives can build a fairer, low-carbon future rooted in people and place.

This site visit to Knocknaheeny offers a “talk-and-walk” experience through one of Cork’s most significant urban regeneration and retrofit programmes, led by strong community partnerships and local leadership.
Participants will explore the neighbourhood with Niche Community Project, visiting key community assets including the library, local streets, and community garden. Along the way, the visit highlights how regeneration is being shaped through community engagement, improved housing, and enhanced public spaces.

The experience will demonstrate how integrated investment in place, people, and social infrastructure can support health, wellbeing, and climate resilience, while strengthening a strong sense of community identity.

This site visit to Ballincollig explores how natural assets and community initiatives come together to support health, wellbeing, and climate action. Participants will visit Ballincollig Regional Park, experience community-led tree planting projects, and explore how green spaces are being enhanced to support biodiversity and active lifestyles.

The visit also includes the Biodiversity Hub, where creative practice and public engagement are used to connect people with climate and nature through workshops and participatory activities.

Together, these elements demonstrate how nature-based solutions, community involvement, and creative approaches can strengthen environmental awareness, social connection, and resilience at neighbourhood level.

This site visit to Blackpool offers a community-led exploration of urban regeneration, heritage, and the River Bride corridor. Participants will follow a local heritage trail, engaging with the area’s rich history while experiencing ongoing efforts to reimagine Blackpool as a more resilient and connected neighbourhood. The visit includes engagement with the local Community Development Project, the Community Centre and Library, and a visit to The Foyer food-growing social enterprise, which combines community employment, skills development, and sustainable food production.

Through these interconnected initiatives, the visit highlights how community action, social enterprise, and shared spaces can support inclusive regeneration, environmental improvement, and local resilience, strengthening both people and place.

Location: Court Room 4, District Court Anglesea Street 
Organiser: Lancet Europe Countdown

This interactive workshop explores how cities can use indicators to turn climate-health evidence into practical, locally relevant action. Drawing on data from the Lancet Countdown in Europe cities report and real-world experience from a European city, participants will examine how indicators can guide policy, investment and implementation. A scenario-based small-group exercise, focused on a challenge such as extreme heat, will support participants to identify priority interventions, address implementation barriers and apply evidence to decision-making. Designed for city leaders, coordinators, planners, public health professionals and other practitioners, the session will foster peer learning, collaboration and stronger city-level climate resilience.

Location: Board Room School of Music
Organiser: École des hautes études en santé publique (EHESP) and University of Turin

The session will explore how green spaces and nature-based solutions can support healthier urban planning while advancing climate mitigation and adaptation. It will introduce two practical decision-support tools for municipalities: a priority mapping method that combines climate hazard, exposure and vulnerability data to identify areas where nature-based solutions are most needed; and the My Green Space platform, which helps local authorities assess and strengthen the health-promoting potential of urban green spaces.  Through hands-on testing, participants will consider how the tools could be applied in their own cities and share feedback based on their local contexts. The session offers an early opportunity to engage with these tools while they are being piloted through the Joint Action Prevent NCD, ahead of their planned release in 2027.

Location: UCC School of Business, 1, Lapps Quay Cork  
Organiser: Public Health Scotland

The Place Standard Tool with a Climate Lens is a practical engagement tool that helps communities, practitioners and decision- makers explore how climate change and action shape the places where people live, work and spend time. Participants will explore how the tool brings communities, practitioners and decision-makers together to consider how climate change and proposed responses affect health, wellbeing, equity and everyday life. Through structured discussion and practical application, the session will help participants identify local strengths, challenges and priorities across adaptation, mitigation and wider place- making. It will provide a participatory approach for connecting community knowledge with decision-making and supporting healthier, fairer, more sustainable and climate-resilient places for all.

Location: Conference Room Cork District Court 
Organiser: WHO European Healthy Cities Network, Scientific Committee

Cities are increasingly at the frontline of climate-related health challenges, yet much of the evidence informing climate and health policy is generated outside the settings where implementation actually occurs. At the same time, cities are producing valuable knowledge through policies, programs, community action and natural experiments, but this evidence is often insufficiently captured, evaluated or shared.
This workshop will explore how cities can become active producers - not only users - of climate and health evidence. Using a middle-out approach, the session will connect scientific evidence with political leadership, municipal practice and community knowledge. Participants will work with real city challenges to identify what evidence already exists, what knowledge gaps remain, and how local interventions can generate transferable learning. The workshop complements the Summit by moving from commitments towards implementation and learning. It will provide mayors, practitioners, researchers and partners with a practical approach for linking evidence, action and evaluation, while strengthening collaboration between cities and scientific institutions. The ultimate aim is to build a stronger evidence ecosystem in which knowledge flows both to cities and from cities.

Location: Court Room 5, District Court, Anglesea St
Organiser: Go Green Next Horizon Europe Consortium

One Health provides a framework for understanding the interdependence of human, animal and ecosystem health. At the city level, Planetary Health offers a practical pathway for implementing this framework by focusing on integrated, solution-oriented approaches that address urban challenges while delivering benefits for both people and the environment.
This workshop will explore how cities can apply Planetary Health principles to address interconnected challenges such as climate change, air pollution, biodiversity loss and environmental degradation. The approach places people and communities at the centre of urban transformation while recognising the importance of healthy ecosystems in supporting long-term health, wellbeing and resilience.
Participants will examine how co-creation, knowledge sharing, capacity building and inclusive engagement can support the design and implementation of effective local solutions. The workshop will also explore how behavioural science and participatory approaches can help strengthen the impact and uptake of city-led initiatives.