Nine municipalities, of the 56 awarded with the Green Flag EcoXXI 2020, reached an index equal or higher than 80 percent in the programme on sustainability issues, which this year had more than 60 participants.

During the online presentation of the Green Flag Award EcoXXI 2020, themunicipalities of Pombal, Loures, Torres vedras, Águeda, Leiria, Lousã, Braga, Funchal and Maia reached a score equal or higher than 80 percent, in a set of 21 indicators that allow “to measure the behaviour of each municipality on the path of sustainability”.

Of the 62 candidates, 56 municipalities won the Green Flag EcoXXI for reaching an index equal or higher than 50 percent, while six failed because they didn’t reach the minimum objectives to be distinguished.

“56 municipalities won the flag, which attests to the good results achieved and the ability to become more sustainable”, said José Archer, president of the Associação Bandeira Azul (ABAE), promoter of the EcoXXI programme.

As already happened in 2019, the districtof Lisbon was the most participative, with nine municipalities (one more than last year), followed by Coimbra, with eight municipalities (also one more compared to 2019), and the Autonomous Region of the Azores, with six (the same number of 2019).

The EcoXXI programme has been implemented since 2005 by the Blue Flag Association of Europe and aims to recognise the best sustainability practices at the local level, through the assessment, by a set of experts, of 21 indicators and 71 sub-indicators in the environmental, social and economic areas.