Adapterra UA 2025: results of the competition for the best local climate adaptation solutions

On 26 Novem­ber, Eco­Club, togeth­er with the PAABS project, imple­ment­ed by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Inter­na­tionale Zusam­me­nar­beit (GIZ) GmbH, IKI Small Grants, Covenant of Mayors–East and Nadace Part­ner­ství, announced the results of Adapter­ra UA 2025 — a nation­wide com­pe­ti­tion high­light­ing the best local cli­mate adap­ta­tion projects.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from across Ukraine — from Nikopol to Dro­hobych, from Cherni­hiv to Lviv — sub­mit­ted 50 already imple­ment­ed cli­mate adap­ta­tion ini­tia­tives, com­pet­ing across three award cat­e­gories. Yet the par­tic­i­pants shared a com­mon goal: to present prac­ti­cal solu­tions that oth­er com­mu­ni­ties could draw on and repli­cate.

The final­ists were cho­sen by an expert jury and through an open pub­lic vote on the Adapter­ra web­site, where any­one could sup­port one project in each cat­e­go­ry. Detailed descrip­tions of the nine final­ist projects were also pub­lished on the web­site.

Winners of the competition

Category 1: “Climate adaptation measure implemented by a municipality”

Win­ner: “A Shared Home for Peo­ple and Nature”, imple­ment­ed by the Envi­ron­men­tal Cen­tre of the Palace of Chil­dren and Youth, Rivne. The project trans­forms the park sur­round­ing the insti­tu­tion into a nature-based learn­ing space where chil­dren explore the city’s ecosys­tems while con­tribut­ing to a cli­mate-resilient and vis­i­tor-friend­ly urban envi­ron­ment.

Category 2: “Climate adaptation measure implemented by an NGO or community initiative”

Win­ner: “Green Rev­o­lu­tion on Stu­dents’ Square: How Con­crete Became a Liv­ing Gar­den”, imple­ment­ed by NGO Eco Mis­to, Cherni­hiv.

This is a sto­ry of com­mu­ni­ty-led urban trans­for­ma­tion, where res­i­dents turned a grey con­crete space into a thriv­ing eco­log­i­cal oasis — demon­strat­ing how envi­ron­men­tal think­ing can reshape both land­scapes and cities.

Category 3: “Methodological materials for implementing climate adaptation measures”

Win­ner: “Cli­mate ABC: How One Course Is Chang­ing the Mind­set of Thou­sands of Ukrain­ian Fam­i­lies”, authored by Iry­na Sankovs­ka in coop­er­a­tion with the Ukrain­ian Envi­ron­men­tal Club “Green Wave”.This edu­ca­tion­al course intro­duces school­child­ren to prac­ti­cal eco­log­i­cal think­ing, empow­er­ing them to act respon­si­bly and share their knowl­edge with­in their fam­i­lies.

Despite being the first com­pe­ti­tion of its scale in Ukraine, Adapter­ra UA 2025 revealed a strong demand for cli­mate solu­tions and high­light­ed numer­ous com­mu­ni­ty ini­tia­tives wor­thy of wider recog­ni­tion. These exam­ples prove that Ukraini­ans are already build­ing a green future — step by step, in cities and towns across the coun­try, even amid the chal­lenges of war.

Dur­ing the award cer­e­mo­ny dis­cus­sions, par­tic­i­pants empha­sised that cli­mate adap­ta­tion is a fun­da­men­tal pre­req­ui­site for Ukraine’s suc­cess­ful post-war recov­ery and a vital part of the country’s inte­gra­tion into the Euro­pean Union, align­ing with Euro­pean stan­dards on envi­ron­men­tal pol­i­cy, risk man­age­ment and sus­tain­able devel­op­ment.

The avail­abil­i­ty of a plat­form fea­tur­ing already imple­ment­ed adap­ta­tion mea­sures will sup­port com­mu­ni­ties in sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly embed­ding adap­ta­tion into local plan­ning. Local resilience to cli­mate risks will deter­mine the safe­ty and qual­i­ty of life of res­i­dents in the years to come. Dur­ing the com­pe­ti­tion peri­od, 2,700 users vis­it­ed the Adapter­ra plat­form and explored the show­cased adap­ta­tion solu­tions.

Authors of the Ukrain­ian Adapter­ra com­pe­ti­tion plat­form were inspired by the Czech ini­tia­tive Adapter­ra Awards, which runs a com­pe­ti­tion for the best cli­mate adap­ta­tion projects in the Czech Repub­lic and Aus­tria.

The event was organ­ised by Ecoсlub, a mem­ber of the PAABS con­sor­tium. PAABS is fund­ed by the Fed­er­al Min­istry for the Envi­ron­ment, Cli­mate Action, Nature Con­ser­va­tion and Nuclear Safe­ty (BMUKN) under the Inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate Ini­tia­tive (IKI), the project is sup­port­ed and coor­di­nat­ed by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Inter­na­tionale Zusam­me­nar­beit (GIZ) GmbH. PAABS stands for “Sup­port­ing Ukraine in the imple­men­ta­tion of the Paris Agree­ment and adap­ta­tion to the impact of cli­mate change in the Black Sea region”.