On 28 March, Paris is to host the symposium “Towards the Sustainable City”, organised by Málaga’s candidature to host the 2027 World Expo “The Urban Era: Towards the Sustainable City”. The event is for delegates of the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE), the body responsible for selecting a host city.

The symposium, which will be attended by international experts in sustainable urban development and innovation in cities, will address the candidature’s central theme with participation from experts in the areas of sustainability, innovation and the environment. Institutional representatives from the administrations promoting the candidature will also be present.

The mayor of Málaga, Francisco de la Torre, the minister of Economy, the general director for Economic Diplomacy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, Ana Esmeralda Martínez, the Andalucían minister of Treasury and European Funds, Carolina España, Málaga province’s delegate to the Andalucían Regional Government, Patricia Navarro, and the Third Vice President of Málaga County Council, Manuel Marmolejo will all attend.

The opening lecture “The urban era: global perspectives on urbanisation and its impact on the planet” will include talks by Alfonso Vegara, architect and urban planner who chairs Fundación Metrópoli and Carlos Moreno, a lecturer at the IAE Pantheon Sorbonne University, co-founder and scientific director of the professorship “Entrepreneurialism, Territory, Innovation” and creator of the “15-minute city”.

The following slot, “Urban Laboratory” will include examples of innovation projects and programmes for Urban Sustainability. This space will be moderated by Ana Belén Moreno, CEO of On-cities and expert in urban development. Speakers include Verónica González, director of the programme Juárez Resiliente by Juárez City Council (Mexico), Salvador Rueda, director of FEUT and Urban Planning expert and creator of concept ‘superblocks’, Arístides Kassangoye, ecosystem services and SDG advisor from Gabon’s Ministry of Waters and Forests and Robert Lennard Le Hunte, managing director of the Caribbean, Trinidad and Tobago of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB).

Then the talk “Málaga 2027, a project towards urban sustainability” will take place. Speakers include Jerónimo Blasco, general director of Málaga City Council for Expo 2027, Javier Pérez de la Fuente, head of the department of architecture and infrastructures of Málaga City Council’s Urban Planning Management and Carmen Bueno, the candidature’s consultant.

This will be followed by the participative session “The city comes into play” during which Ekim Tan, CEO of Play the City and Txell Blanco, architect and visiting professor at the University of Applied Sciences Hogeschool Utrecht will present Play the City, a digital tool that reflects on the challenges involving sustainable urban management to examine the candidature’s core theme in more detail.

The symposium will conclude with a roundtable discussion to analyse the urgency and urban development trends towards sustainability. This session will be moderated by Cristina Monge, a political scientist with speakers Sergio Roldán Gutiérrez, consultant in international relations of governance from Antioquia, Medellín (Colombia), Torben Kiltgaard, CEO of BLOXHUB (Denmark) and Mamoudou Mouctar, general director of the Agency for the Modernisation of Cities in Niger.

The symposium aims to highlight why focusing on sustainable cities is of interest to all and learn about different regional and national perspectives, ideas and initiatives, solutions and success stories. It will also be a great way of recognising why it is important to share information, discuss what others are doing, and discover innovative examples and solutions that could help implement models and measures that make sustainable cities a reality sooner.
Málaga’s candidature is developed with a specific, necessary mission: to encourage the international community to become involved in making cities more sustainable and to achieve full sustainability in the shortest time frame possible, which is why Málaga 2027 will offer an open international setting to present and share solutions and success stories, giving visibility to one of the hottest topics of our time.

The symposium can be streamed online via the Expo 2027 Málaga and Málaga City Council’s official social networks.

THE URBAN ERA: TOWARDS THE SUSTAINABLE CITY

Málaga is a candidate to host the 2027 World Expo with the proposal “The Urban Era: towards the Sustainable City”, a theme that affects all countries regardless of how developed they are. This candidature calls for reflection on one of the main challenges facing contemporary society in the medium and long term: making population growth and urban development compatible with environmental protection and the adoption of innovative solutions that guarantee improvements in the quality of life of city dwellers.

Málaga’s proposal for the 2027 World Expo presents all countries with the challenge of using innovation as a tool to change the model, which should take the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as a guide. The sub-themes – citizenship, innovation and the environment – will be developed alongside the main theme. More information about the project, which commenced in 2019, can be found on the website and Expo2027 Málaga’s official social media accounts.