Lyon

France

Mission city Pilot city
France National Platform
Lyon Mission City Label
Population 520k
City Area 141 km²
City active since June 2022

In Lyon, the Metropolis is responsible for drawing up and implementing the PCAET. The Metropolis of Lyon comprises 59 communes spread out over 538 km², with very different realities: a highly urbanized central city (Lyon) with over 500,000 inhabitants, medium-sized towns sometimes adjoining Lyon, and small villages with 3,000 inhabitants.

 

The Metropolis' PCAET was drawn up with the aim to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. 150 local stakeholders were involved in developing this document and agreed to commit to it (by signing it). However the PCAET does not adopt an explicit sub-territorial vision: on a specific objective or action, the plan does not give guidance as to how the 59 municipalities, according to their own context, can contribute or go beyond it. It is up to them to decide how they will implement these objectives and actions.

 

In 2013, the City of Lyon voluntarily drew up its first climate, air and energy plan, with a view to setting targets for reducing its greenhouse gas emissions and implementing the objectives of the PCAET. This plan has since been updated and strengthened on several occasions, particularly in the field of adaptation. These successive plans, in which the City’s departments were involved together with elected representatives, were very much focused on the City’s competencies and included a portfolio of actions detailing the commitment of the City’s departments.

Key Learnings

City Best Practices - Session Videos

The Cities Best Practice Series is aimed at learning from the best practices across Mission Cities. These monthly online sessions provide a platform to learn from the best on-the-ground experiences, fostering a discussion about key challenges, leaving space for questions, reflections and comparisons.   Best Practices #1 - Mobilising citizens and stakeholders for action Link to video Cities: Parma, Italy (8:03)  Guimaraes, Portugal (18:40)  Lyon, France (30:22)  Bristol (40:40)    Best Practices #2 - Urban Mobility and Transport Innovative Solutions Link to video Cities: Bordeaux, France (2:15)  Florence, Italy (12:22)  Differdange, Luxembourg (25:28)    Best Practices #3 - Energetic Renovation Link to video Cities: Barcelona, Spain (0:05)  Milan, Italy (11:30)  Brussels, Belgium (28:22)    Best Practices #4 - Learnings from the CCC process as governance innovation tool Link to video Cities: Turku, Finland (2:22)  Ioannina, Greece (39:55)     

Beyond One-Off Participation: Building Long-Term Citizen Engagement for Climate Action

Many cities still approach participation on a project-by-project basis - each initiative starting from scratch, with lessons often lost when staff change or budgets end. This fragmentation makes it hard to build continuity, trust, and institutional learning. To move beyond this cycle, cities need to think of participation not as an isolated event, but as a long-term system - one that strengthens relationships, learning, and collaboration between citizens and government over time. In our work with cities, we’ve identified three complementary approaches that can help bring citizen participation to the next level: Participation Practice - embedding participation into the everyday work of the city through systems, standards, and professional learning. City as Enabler - redefining the city’s role from controller to partner, sharing resources and power to unlock citizen initiative. Transition Governance - building new, ongoing governance structures that support long-term collaboration and experimentation for systemic climate change. Each of these approaches offers a different lens for rethinking participation - whether your goal is to improve internal capacity, empower communities, or create lasting governance ecosystems. Three Approaches to Long-Term Engagement Participation Practice Professionalising and systematising participation is about rethinking how we do participation. It means embedding engagement into the city’s daily operations — setting standards, documenting lessons learned, and creating opportunities for continuous learning across departments. © Photo by Joaquin Arnoa from Pixabay Example: Participation.Brussels Imagine you’re a civil servant in Brussels, tasked with engaging citizens on a new urban planning project. You’ve tried running workshops before, but each time feels like starting from scratch. That’s where Participation.Brussels steps in. Established in 2022 by the regional government of the Brussels‑Capital Region, this small team of five acts like a free-of-charge consultancy for civil servants on regional and municipal level, guiding them through participation challenges and providing practical advice. Through Forum Participation, civil servants can join trainings that combine academic insights, field trips to other cities, and peer learning. The team also helps navigate public procurement related to participation methods, narrowing options and ensuring processes are both efficient and effective. Beyond individual advice, Participation.Brussels maintains an evolving online knowledge base, storing methods, tools, and lessons learned so the city doesn’t lose valuable experience when staff changes. The impact is clear: civil servants feel reassured and empowered, having someone to reach out to for their challenges. By embedding this practice, Brussels is turning citizen engagement from a one-off exercise into a durable culture. If you want to explore Participation Practice in your city, consider asking: How can we professionalise and systematise the way in which we do participation What standards and processes are important for supporting high-quality participation? In our city? How can participation practice serve as a collective memory and learning system to improve future engagement?​ What does it mean to embed participation as ‘business as usual’ within our city? City as Enabler City as Enabler is about redefining the relationship between government and citizens. Instead of controlling, cities act as facilitators — creating the conditions for people and communities to take the lead. This shift empowers citizens as active agents of change, rather than passive recipients of services. © climaienergia.com Example: Valencia’s Local Energy Communities In Valencia, citizen engagement takes a very tangible form: energy communities. Since 2019, the city has been on a mission to give residents ownership over local energy production. The Local Energy Office (Fundació València Clima i Energia) acts as a one-stop-shop, offering workshops, legal templates for creating energy associations, and mediation to help neighbors reach consensus. Take the Requiem in Power project: municipal cemeteries were converted into solar generation sites, and 25% of the energy produced was dedicated to vulnerable households. Meanwhile, in the Castellar pilot energy community, the city covered initial fees for low-income residents, ensuring that everyone could participate as an equal partner. Valencia’s approach is not just about technology or infrastructure; it’s about equity and empowerment. By sharing expertise, providing resources, and taking citizen ideas seriously, the city transforms residents from energy consumers into energy owners. The result? A growing network of energy communities, expanding across neighborhoods, with citizens actively shaping the city’s climate future. If you want to explore City as Enabler in your city, consider asking: What does it mean for a city to be an enabler rather than a provider or controller? What does it mean for us as a city to take direction from citizen-led initiatives?​ In what ways are we already enabling citizens and communities? In what ways can we as a city act on ideas from citizens and civil society?​ How can we share resources like open data, expertise, or spaces? Transition Governance Systemic climate challenges require more than projects or participation processes - they need new forms of governance that allow for ongoing collaboration, experimentation, and dialogue. Transition Governance is about creating these structures so that citizens, government, and institutions can navigate complex change together. © Photo by Romain Girot on Unsplash ​ Example: Lyon Climate Hall Lyon is taking citizen engagement to a systemic level with the upcoming Climate Hall, set to open in 2026. More than just a building, the Hall is designed as a platform for collaboration where citizens, organizations, and government work together on climate solutions. The Hall is structured around three central pillars: School of Resilience – a space for public policy innovation, combining research with civil society insights. Third Place & Off-site Programs – city-wide hubs for awareness, experimentation, and testing new ideas. Network Enhancement – building connections among climate actors, from NGOs and universities to local businesses and citizen groups. Through these pillars, Lyon aims to foster ongoing dialogue, experimentation, and shared learning. Participatory tools like storytelling, evaluation, and citizen-led experimentation ensure that solutions are grounded in real community needs. Partners range from local energy agencies to cultural and educational institutions, creating a city-wide collaborative ecosystem. The Climate Hall demonstrates that for complex transitions like climate neutrality, traditional governance structures are not enough; ongoing, inclusive, and systemic engagement is essential. If you want to explore Transition Governance in your city, consider asking: What new ways of working or decision-making do we need for the zero-carbon transition? How can ongoing conversations between citizens, communities, and government help keep the transition moving forward? How can we build and maintain trust in governance beyond election cycles?   Key Takeaways Citizen engagement is strongest when it is: Professionalised: Systems, standards, and shared learning ensure participation is effective and sustainable. Led by the Community: When citizens take the lead and cities act as partners, engagement becomes transformative. Embedded in governance: Ongoing democratic dialogue builds legitimacy, trust, and collective capacity for change. By combining these approaches, cities can move beyond one-off consultations to create resilient, inclusive, and sustainable pathways toward climate action. Participation is not just a ticking box exercise - it’s a cornerstone of the urban climate transition, transforming citizens from passive recipients into active partners in shaping their future.

Nature-based Solutions and Carbon sinks, green infrastructure and agriculture (ALOFU)

As shown in the Net‐Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario [1] of the IEA, to reach climate neutrality by 2050 part of the emissions will need to be offset with carbon dioxide removal (CDR). In fact, in the Info Kit for Cities is mentioned that “If cities have GHG emissions which cannot be fully mitigated by 2030 due to technological or financial constraints, those so-called residual emissions will have to be compensated”. To deal with residual emissions, carbon sinks are the best option. They consist of remove carbon dioxide emissions through nature-based solutions (such as forests and soils), or/and technological solutions, such as CDR (carbon dioxide removal). Another option for residual emissions that the Info Kit considers are carbon credits, although it recommends to limit them and it will be subject to certain rules (see the info Kits for more information). URBAN CARBON STORAGE AND SEQUESTRATION, AND SINGULAR GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE The focus of this thematic area is the carbon sinks and nature-based solutions. The International Union for Conservation of Nature states that “Nature-based solutions (NBS) could provide around 30% of the cost-effective mitigation needed by 2030 to stabilise warming to below 2ºC” [2]. Furthermore, it can cut emissions from changes in land use (including agriculture, forestry and other land uses [3]) by means of the creation of natural carbon sinks for carbon storage and sequestration. NBS can also tackle major societal challenges such as the environmental degradation and biodiversity loss, water security, food security, human health, economic and social development, disaster risk reduction, or climate change mitigation and adaptation. NBS foster coordination among sectors (e.g. infrastructures, transport, energy water, built environment and environment) and can foster cross-sectoral policies. In Helsinki the use of urban carbon sinks play a key role in emission compensation for its Carbon-Neutral Helsinki 2035 Action Plan, and related actions such as the planning and green areas design (ensuring sufficient green structures in each plot) or the reforestation and conservation of areas and forests in the city. Choosing the right nature-based solution to meet the diverse urban challenges will be the main issue [4], such as: planting trees for cooling down the streets (like in Lyon), vertical green infrastructure (like in Genova), green resting areas or parks (like in UK), shading green structures (like in Valladolid and Izmir), floating gardens (like in Liverpool), community gardens, etc. and the areas could be connected to grey infrastructure (such as green corridors, like in Vitoria). Also, NBS can be used for community composting, for recycling organic solids (reducing waste diverted to landfills or costs of transport and city waste management), and use the output as fertiliser and for soil amendment in local parks and green spaces within the community area, or sold through municipal buy-back programmes, like in the city of Nitra. The green areas can be used for also filtering water (green filter area, like in Colombia) or air, through urban garden bio-filter, which can reduce PM and pollutants in the air (like in Valladolid). For the regeneration of areas that are degraded or contaminated (like roundabouts, roadsides, etc.), smart-soils and phytoremediation can be used, like in Washington DC where plants detoxify a range of pollutants in Spring Valley neighbourhood. Furthermore, with the right choice of plants and maintenance, pollinators can be increased, e.g. pollinator verges and spaces, like in Ohio where an integrated plan to support the 4B’s was implemented to protect birds, butterflies, bees and beauty along roadsides, which are essential to our ecosystems and to agriculture. WATER INTERVENTIONS Last but not the least, NBS can be used for climate adaptation, especially for areas that are sensitive to droughts and floods. To tackle this challenges the following solutions can be used: Hard drainage-flood prevention, grassed swales and water retention pounds, serve to slow and convey stormwater runoff promoting infiltration into the ground resulting in cleaner runoff (like in Connecticut, USA). Floodable park, serving to control flow rates and decrease flood peaks by storing excess floodwater and releasing it slowly once the risk of flooding has passed (like in Alicante, Spain). Green pavements, which are made out of a porous concrete surface that allow water to filter in the inside and absorbed by the ground (like in Delft, The Netherlands). Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SuDS), which are designed to manage and use rainwater close to where it falls, on the surface and incorporating vegetation, tend to provide the greatest benefits (like in Buckland House Car Park, Hampshire, UK). Water irrigation and maintenance technologies to reduce flooding and improve water quality autonomous sensors and valves to create “smart” stormwater systems (like in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA). Constructed wetlands, which can treated wastewater and control stormwater runoff (like in Woodcroft Estate, Sydbey, Australia). Rain gardens, which are shallow basin designed to collect, store, filter and treat runoff water (like in Lyon, France). Figure: Carbon sequestration through urban carbon sinks (trees, etc.) in Los Angeles References: [1] International Energy Agency (2021), Net Zero by 2050, IEA, Paris: Net Zero by 2050 Scenario - Data product - IEA. https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/data-product/net-zero-by-2050-scenario [2] https://portals.iucn.org/library/sites/library/files/documents/2020-020-En.pdf [3] afforestation / reforestation, enhanced weathering, biochar, soil carbon sequestration, blue carbon methods and techniques, ocean alkalinisation, and ocean fertilization. [4] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1618866721003642 LIST OF NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS IN NetZeroCities: Urban carbon storage and sequestration, and singular green infrastructure Urban carbon sink https://netzerocities.app/resource-1128 Smart-soils and phytoremediation https://netzerocities.app/resource-1158 Pollinator and verges spaces https://netzerocities.app/resource-1178 Vertical mobile gardens https://netzerocities.app/resource-1188 Green shading structures https://netzerocities.app/resource-1198 Floating gardens https://netzerocities.app/resource-1218 Green filter area https://netzerocities.app/resource-1228 Urban garden bio-filter https://netzerocities.app/resource-1238 Green resting areas, parks and urban forests, parklets https://netzerocities.app/resource-1258 Cooling trees https://netzerocities.app/resource-1268 Green corridors for active and cooler mobility https://netzerocities.app/resource-1278 Community composting https://netzerocities.app/resource-1298 Water interventions Hard drainage-flood prevention https://netzerocities.app/resource-1308 Grassed swales and water retention pounds https://netzerocities.app/resource-1318 Floodable park https://netzerocities.app/resource-1328 Green pavements: hard drainage pavements; green parking pavements https://netzerocities.app/resource-1348 Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SuDS) https://netzerocities.app/resource-1358 Water irrigation and maintenance technologies https://netzerocities.app/resource-1368 Constructed wetland https://netzerocities.app/resource-1378 Rain garden https://netzerocities.app/resource-1388​​​​​​​
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