Urban Future 25 | Lodz, Poland
This year, we had again the great chance to participate in the Urban Future conference, on 20-23 May 2025, in Lodz, Poland. This conference is the annual meetup for urban change-makers who seek inspiration to transform their cities and search for new partnerships.
Fanny, Liza and Julia, the co-founders of the What’s That Green? network, were invited to co-moderate three sessions during the event which focused on fostering collaboration and raising awareness about urban nature as a regeneration process.
The Young Leaders workshop
At this year’s Urban Future Conference, something special happened during the Renaturing Cities track. What began as a bold idea in a shared Miro board became a vivid, collective exploration of how to ground urban greening in real communities, with real people, and real impact.
Together with the amazing support of Carolin Meyer, Pim Isaacs, and the wider Urban Future team, Liza and Fanny brought to life a collaborative session that invited participants not only to listen, but to act. Fanny had the opportunity to open the workshop by sharing stories from her PhD research in Kraków, where community gardens gave the example of experimenting collective agency, care, and post-socialist transformation.
From there, we zoomed in on Łódź. Participants were invited to imagine how the principles of community-based renaturing could be applied in this very city. Through a hands-on mapping activity, each group became both analyst and visionary to answer the key question: What methods have you found most effective for involving residents in decision-making around urban greening – especially in areas where trust in government is low?
Participants not only mapped stakeholders and tensions, but also interpreted their findings and proposed actionable recommendations for making nature-based solutions more inclusive and rooted in local needs. The Urban Future Young Leaders brought a fresh perspective to the room. Their reflections were insightful and grounded in real experiences, reminding us that the city of the future is already taking shape, through the collaborative ideas.
Fanny Téoule (Facilitator) Urbanist and Researcher at Jagiellonian University Krakow | Poland
Carolin Meyer (Facilitator) Team Lead Urban Strategy at Dietrich Untertrifaller | Austria
Pim Isaacs (Facilitator) Advisor Urban development at Kickstad | Netherlands
Elizaveta Fakirova (Facilitator) Urban Researcher & Manager at Technical University of Munich | Germany
Katarzyna Dyzio, Director of the Urban Activity Bureau at City of Lodz | Poland
Ilon Bema, Property Management Commercial Manager, Echo Investment S.A | Poland
Joanna Fiszer-Sozańska, Design Expert, Archicom SA| Poland
Jorick Beijer, Co-founder & Director at BLOSSITY
Session 1.2 Building Strategic Networks
Great projects need great teams! And sometimes it’s unexpected partners that will be the key to success for your project. In this session three inspiring speakers shared their experience with building interdisciplinary and cross-departmental teams to achieve significant change.
Then the floor was given to the participants in the room to seek and offer help to each other and make new connections based on their specific expertise and needs. This interactive session resulted in a web of “needs” and “offers” which supported participants in finding the right partner for their future project!
Julia Micklewright (Facilitator), PhD & Teaching associate at Technical University of Munich | Germany
Elizaveta Fakirova (Facilitator), Urban Researcher & Manager at Technical University of Munich | Germany
Perle Laouenan-Catchpole (Facilitator), Moderator | Netherlands
Patrick Daude, Project Manager for Mobility & International Relations at Stuttgart Department for Climate Protection, Mobility and Housing | Germany
Laura Kairienė, Chief Architect at City of Vilnius | Lithuania
André Sobczak, General Secretary at Eurocities | Belgium
Session 3.4: Financing Nature in Cities
This session tackled one of the most pressing yet still underfunded challenges in urban development: financing urban nature. While the value of green spaces—such as community gardens, green facades, and pocket parks—is widely recognized, securing funding for their implementation and maintenance often meets resistance due to perceived lack of immediate return on investment. Thanks to insights for from the experts Ludo Pittie (WSP, UK), Anna Wierzbicka (City of Warsaw, Poland), and Maria Derlõš (City of Tallinn, Estonia), the session explored practical strategies to engage skeptics, develop public-private partnerships and mobilize financial support for green urban infrastructure.
Elizaveta Fakirova (Facilitator) Urban Researcher & Manager at Technical University of Munich | Germany
Ludo Pittie, Director Landscape Advisory at WSP | UK
Anna Wierzbicka, Director of the Environmental Management Division | Poland
Maria Derlõš, Urban Gardening Project Manager at City of Tallinn | Estonia
If you want to know more about the other sessions of the conference, check out the program here.
We hope to be able to join Urban Future next year in Ljubljana and to see you there!
