The European Green Capital Awar
d is an annual award scheme set up and managed by the European Comission to recognise cities that are making a particular effort to meet high standards of environmental performance and quality of life.
At the begining of September, representatives from the Basque Capital, Vitoria-Gasteiz, defended the city’s candidacy to become European Green Capital in 2012 and 2013. And it was in October 20th when Vitoria reached its dream.
The candidancy of the city to Green Capital enjoyed a great monitoring in social networks. In Twitter and Facebook there were spaces specially destinated to encourage the campaign “Verde por fuera, verde por dentro” .
In Twitter the “europeangreencapital” became one of the most updated tag of Spain.The number of people who follow the campaign through this network was 1137. On the other hand, Facebook’s website has moved to have 2,633 followers, which nearly a thousand of them have joined in October, when Vitoria was proclaimed “Green Capital”. The event in Facebook for supporting the nomination was confirmed by close 1,200 people, the same number of users who decided to change their profile into a “greener” one in order to support the candidacy, a spontaneous gesture launched by a person using the network.
Social networks were not the only tools destinated to leave their messages, dozens of people went to the stand installed in the Virgen Blanca Square in order to leave their messages for support and defense the nomination, as well as greetings in the days after the proclamation.
The campaign website has accumulated 46,886 visits since it was inaugurated on 28 June. The number of visits per week is 4,230, a number that shot up to 10,116 visits the day that Vitoria became the winner.
The other finalist cities were Barcelona (Catalonia), Malmö (Sweden), Nantes (France), Nuremberg (Germany) and Reykjavík (capital city of Iceland).
Vitoria’s success as a finalist to the title comes shortly after Bilbao’s achievement at becoming the first ever city to win a Nobel prize: The Lee Kuan Yew World city prize was awarded to the Biscay capital for its livability, vibrancy, sustainability and quality of life. So both cities have reasons to celebrate something. Congratulations for both of them.
What I am trying to explain in this post is that thanks to all this virtual (and real) support Vitoria has made its dream become true! Do you realize the power that 2.0 world has?
Congratulations everybody for this good job and, as Vitoria citiziens say, que vi, que vi que VIVA VITORIA!!
Here you have a video of the city. Hope you enjoy it and decide to visit, not only Vitoria, but its sorroundings too.
External references:
- “Notas de prensa” by Asesor Prensa on 1st November 2010 (13:28) at the city hall´s website. Retrieved: 1st October 2010 from: http://blogs.vitoria-gasteiz.org/medios/tag/twitter/
- “Basque capital Vitoria-Gasteiz finalist for European Green Capital” by Ownel Mears on 09/09/2010 at eitb.com website. Retrieved:1st October 2010 from:http://www.eitb.com/news/life/detail/498799/basque-capital-vitoria-gasteiz-finalist-european-green-capital/
- “Bilbao wins first ever Nobel prize for cities” by Ownel Mears on 05/12/2010 at eitb.com website. Retrieved: 25 th October from: http://www.eitb.com/news/life/detail/417968/bilbao-wins-first-ever-nobel-prize-cities/
Filed under: Web Communication 
