Riga School Climate Days: A collaborative approach towards climate neutrality

The Climate Budget Training Course recently brought together over 50 city representatives and urban experts to explore how climate budgeting can accelerate the transition to climate neutrality in Europe. In its second module, the course focused on how cities can begin climate budgeting in ways that reflect their local mandates and contexts, highlighting both the benefits of working within an existing formal framework and of starting with concrete actions before formalising commitments.

Participants learned how to lay strong foundations for climate budgeting, build internal capacity, and foster cross-departmental cooperation. Practical examples from Riga, Vienna and Norderstedt demonstrated how different sectors can contribute to climate action and how collaboration across departments enables tailored yet effective climate budgeting approaches.

As a participating city in the EU-funded Climate-4-CAST project, Riga shared its experience on the path towards a climate-neutral future during Module 2 of the training.

Riga aims to be one of the first climate-neutral cities in the Baltic States, as well as one of the 100 climate-neutral cities in Europe. To this end, it has adopted a pragmatic and collaborative approach to climate budgeting. Although Riga has not yet adopted a formal climate budget, it operates under an informal framework set out in its Climate City Contract, which establishes a shared commitment to climate action across sectors. Recognising that change must start from within, the city of Riga has introduced an energy management system for its municipal buildings, including schools. This system provides an online platform through which heads of institutions and building owners can track and analyse energy consumption. However, as school directors are not real estate managers, responsibility for energy optimisation can become blurred. Riga has therefore decided to turn this challenge into an opportunity by engaging young people and empowering existing eco-movements in schools with knowledge and tools.

As part of the Riga School Climate Days, the city invites interested student groups to work with real energy data from their own schools. The groups will be supported by energy detectives who can be booked by schools to guide pupils through practical climate and energy activities.

This initiative embeds climate budgeting principles into everyday school life. Energy use is monitored, responsibilities are shared, and climate decisions are openly discussed between students, teachers and city experts. Riga’s experience demonstrates that climate neutrality need not be perceived as a sacrifice, but rather as an opportunity to enjoy cleaner air, quieter streets, lower energy bills in efficient buildings and a brighter future for children and grandchildren.

📌 If you are interested in receiving further invitations to the upcoming events within the climate budgeting course, please fill in this form.

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