From the 12-15th September 2017, Alma Mater University of Bologna and the National Research Council hosted ‘GreenCities 2017: the International Symposium on greener cities for more efficient ecosystem services’ in Bologna, Italy. The focus was on the role that urban green infrastructures can play in adapting to and building the resilience of cities to climate change. 
A large group of scientists from many different universities and organisations shared their experiences in the fields of horticulture, plant physiology, sociology, meteorology, urban planning, architecture, civil engineering and design.
The main themes of the conference were:
- Cities and climate change, including the risks of climate change, influence of urban green on human thermal comfort, application of thermal indices, use of modelling tools (for example i-TREE) for urban planning and bio-meteorological assessment;
- Smart horticulture for sustainable cities, including greenhouse technology, hydroponic systems, food production on greening of roofs and facades, automated and integrated solutions for indoor farming and microclimate mitigation, irrigation and nutrient management, community gardens and horticultural therapy for people afflicted with diseases such as dementia;
- Green infrastructure for more efficient ecosystem services, including eco-physiological characterisation of vegetation used in green infrastructure, plant selection for more efficiency in rainfall capture and CO2 sequestration, phytoremediation of heavy metals in urban soils, urban agriculture for sustainable social recovery of metropolitan slums areas, green roofs as a strategy for urban heat island mitigation and increasing biodiversity.
- Designing and engineering greener cities, including green facades/roofs and flood mitigation measures.
Some interesting findings from the conference emerged on urban greening. For example, Isabelle Anguelovski, Senior Researcher and Principal Investigator at the Institute for Environmental Science and Technology, Autonomous University of Barcelona, used case studies from cities worldwide to argue that while urban green spaces provide numerous health, social, and ecological benefits, the creation of urban greening project does not benefit everybody equally. The provision of such spaces generally leads to the displacement or exclusion of the most socially and racially vulnerable urban residents and so can establish new forms of environmental privilege. This is a valuable insight for the PERFECT partners to consider in preparing their Action Plans.
One of the main lessons from the conference for PERFECT was that a general rethinking of the built environment and innovative thinking is required to implement nature-based solutions. In these developments, research, policy and business will need to work closely together to achieve the required effects. PERFECT partners will discuss this further when they meet in Ferrara for the third partner meeting in March 2018, which will include a workshop on working with their stakeholder groups to achieve investment in multi-functional green infrastructure.
