Mayor Yordanka Fandakova met with the Deputy Mayor and Chairman of the Environment Department at the Municipality of Lisbon, José Sá Fernandes in Sofia Municipality. At the meeting, they discussed the implementation of green policies and measures to improve urban air quality.

"We are deepening the cooperation between the two capitals, which are cities with ancient history. Our goal is to share experiences and successful practices to improve people's quality of life with a focus on coping with the challenges of climate change", said José Sá Fernandes. He emphasized that big cities have common challenges and should share good examples.

Mayor Fandakova pointed out that in the implementation of all major projects Sofia is striving to implement green policies for improving air quality. "We are interested in the experience of Lisbon in this area, as it will be the Green Capital of Europe for 2020. In the recent years, Sofia has invested in the development of the most environmentally friendly transport, the subway, in the modernization of the urban transport providing the first zero-emission busses. Another 15 are to be purchased. Moreover, Sofia has implemented a program for the rehabilitation and construction of parks and gardens as well as for afforestation. The last major project is the planting of the new forest of Sofia on an area of 225 decares.

Lisbon won the European Green Capital Award for 2020 focusing on three areas - sustainable urban mobility, limiting the use of cars by prioritizing urban transport and pedestrian traffic, and developing a charging station system for electromobiles.

With regard to the waste management system, Lisbon works on separate waste collection and waste recovery for electricity production for 150 000 households.

It is envisaged the experience of the Portuguese capital to be shared in joint initiatives at expert level. 

The advisor to the Deputy Mayor of Lisbon for the Environment Department, Pedro Vaz and the advisor to the Chairman of the Environment Department, Sophia Cordeiro, as well as by the team of the Green Sofia Project of Sofia Municipality also attended the meeting.