In 2020, Porto committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2030, an ambitious goal for a city of around 230 000 inhabitants. But how do you turn that promise into concrete actions on the streets? The answer emerged as a new approach: making it personal, creative, and fun. This determination gave birth to the Porto Climate Pact, an ambitious plan that is not just housed in City Hall but is lived out in the daily habits of its residents.
The Porto Climate Pact laid the foundation for a citizen-driven climate mission. It isn’t a dry political document but a call to action, inviting all residents, businesses, and community groups to contribute to reducing emissions. City officials knew that traditional top-down methods weren’t enough: carbon neutrality isn’t achieved by experts alone. They needed citizens to feel like part of the Mission, not just as beneficiaries of cleaner air and a better city, but as active protagonists in the story of a greener Porto. Over the past two years, this Pact has inspired a series of creative initiatives that put people at the heart of climate action.
From the outset, Porto’s climate team faced a challenge familiar to many cities: how to engage citizens in an abstract goal like “net zero emissions”? Many people still saw climate neutrality as a distant project, handled by scientists or politicians. Porto realised it needed to try something different to capture the public’s imagination.
“We understood that an ambitious plan on paper means little if people on the ground don’t connect with it,” recalls Filipe Araújo, Vice-Mayor of Porto and City Councillor for Environment, Climate, Innovation and Digital Transition. The city set out to experiment with new formats: using storytelling, culture, and technology to turn passive observers into active contributors. One of the first actions they put in place were the Climate Talks, and since then, new initiatives have emerged from the Pact’s collaborative approach. What they all have in common is the belief that citizens aren’t just climate “targets”, they’re partners and protagonists.
Local art sparks the movement “What’s in our hands”
It all started in a university classroom. Juliana Pires, a Master’s student at Porto’s Fine Arts Faculty, had been following the Porto Climate Pact and felt the usual climate messages weren’t reaching her peers. One afternoon, sketching ideas for her thesis project, she thought: “What if we spoke about sustainability in our own Porto way, with humour, heart, and a bit of mischief?”
An ambitious plan on paper means little if people on the ground don’t connect with it
Juliana approached the city’s climate team with a bold proposal: she would develop a citizen-focused climate campaign as her final art project. Far from the typical sombre environmental posters, her concept tapped into Porto’s vibrant culture and inside jokes. The team loved the idea. Together, the young designer and city staff brainstormed how to translate serious topics like saving water or cutting waste into playful, eye-catching graphics that would make people smile… and think.
Juliana’s campaign, eventually titled ‘O Que Está nas Nossas Mãos’ (Portuguese for ‘What’s in our hands’), took over Porto. Using colloquial Porto expressions, local song lyrics, and witty illustrations, the campaign showed everyday actions people can take for sustainability – all through a local lens.
The campaign also spread through social media with a catchy hashtag, but also physically penetrated every corner of the city. Over a few weeks, local organisations, from schools to sports clubs, volunteered to distribute campaign stickers and posters. One poster, for example, used a cheeky phrase about the city’s famous Bolhão Market to promote buying local produce. Passersby waiting for the morning bus found themselves literally grasping the message on the handrails.
By infusing climate action with local personality, the campaign succeeded in grabbing attention and starting conversations. Saving energy or water no longer feels like a chore; it feels like a shared city pride, something literally “in our hands.”
Walking the talk: Roteiros com ImPacto
Roteiros com ImPacto is an initiative that brings citizens face-to-face with Porto’s climate action projects, allowing them to see solutions in action and engage directly with the people behind them.
It consists of guided tours divided into five routes, each visiting several emblematic projects across the city. From green parks to energy communities, participants walk between sites and get an up-close look at how these projects contribute to sustainability and climate resilience in their city.
For a successful climate transition, we need the active involvement of our citizens
“Sometimes we see a beautiful park, but there is much more about it than meets the eye,” says Filipe Araújo. On each “impact tour,” architects, engineers, and other experts join in to explain why things were done a certain way, from the choice of a tree species to the design of a footpath. This firsthand interaction helped demystify the city’s green solutions. For example, when residents noticed a new park occasionally flooding, the tour allowed them to learn it was an intentional nature-based design to absorb stormwater, not a flaw in construction.
“For a successful climate transition, we need the active involvement of our citizens,” noted Filipe Araújo, Porto’s Vice Mayor, when welcoming participants to one of the walks. He underlines how important it is to involve people in the journey, in this case, literally, toward carbon neutrality.
In total, more than 260 residents took part in the first edition of Roteiros com ImPacto tours, from students to retirees. This mix of generations created a rich exchange of perspectives. Older participants shared memories of the city’s past versus present, while younger attendees brought fresh curiosity. The walking tours were kept short (around 2 hours within a 1 km route) to remain accessible, and conversations flowed freely between citizens and city staff, rather than being one-sided lectures. The strong turnout and enthusiastic feedback showed that people are eager to put feet on the ground and understand what climate action looks like in their own neighbourhoods.
Game on for sustainability through the WAKE UP app
If the campaign brought climate action to Porto’s streets and the tours brought people to the projects, the city’s next initiative aims right at the palm of citizens’ hands. “WAKE UP!” is a digital app Porto is developing to turn sustainable behaviour into an engaging daily game.
Cities can invest in smart grids, electric buses, and bike lanes, but how do they encourage each individual to make greener choices day in and day out? Tracking one’s carbon footprint can be tedious, and most people don’t have the time or knowledge to measure every kilowatt or kilogram of waste. Porto’s idea: leverage the digital infrastructure it already has and make lowering emissions as convenient as checking your phone.
The foundation for WAKE UP! was laid by something most Porto residents already carry in their wallet: the Porto Card. This city-issued citizen card (and its digital equivalent) lets residents access public services, from using some public transport to borrowing library books, with one login. It also links to things like swimming pools’ access and utility accounts. In essence, Porto had a ready-made platform to connect various data about city life securely to each person. WAKE UP! builds on this by pulling in key indicators of sustainable living for any user who opts in.
The idea is the app will be able sync with your household smart metres to show how much electricity and water you used this week/month and compare it to last week/month. If you take the metro or bus using your Porto card, WAKE UP! counts that as carbon-free commute miles. All this information is then presented back to the user in a friendly dashboard – almost like a sustainability fitness tracker designed for a city.
The app celebrates your green choices and nudges locals to improve. Users earn points for each eco-action, which can then translate into small rewards. “We wanted to reward good behaviour with something people value, individually or collectively,” says Daniel Freitas, Head of Carbon Neutrality in Porto, highlighting that they will co-designed the reward system with input from citizens.
We wanted to reward good behaviour with something people value, individually or collectively
Though still in a pilot phase, this is a project led by the Municipality of Porto and funded by the European Union under Cohort 2 of the NetZeroCities Pilot Cities Programme. WAKE UP! has generated excitement as one of the first comprehensive citizen climate apps of its kind. Porto Digital is finalising the app development, and a wider roll-out is expected soon.
Meeting people where they are
Other European cities on the quest for climate neutrality can learn from Porto’s citizen-driven initiatives. The “What’s in Our Hands” campaign showed that using humour, art, and local culture can make sustainability a topic of everyday conversation. Another is the impact of hands-on experiences, abstract ideas like “climate resilience” become real when people can see and engage with solutions firsthand. The Roteiros com ImPacto tours turned passive observers into inspired participants, while WAKE UP! demonstrated how digital tools, if built around real needs, can sustain engagement beyond one-off events.
These efforts didn’t happen in isolation; they reinforced each other. A resident might first notice a witty climate poster, then join a site visit, and later download the app to continue their journey. This layered approach, combining creative messaging, experiential learning, and digital empowerment, keeps momentum going.
In all, for cities looking to replicate Porto’s success, the takeaway is simple: meet people where they are.
