Russian megacities in the context of new social and environmental challenges: building complex interdisciplinary model of an assessment of 'green' cities and strategies for their development in Russia

The project aims at analysis of the development of the Russian megacities based on the 'green' cities concept: studying the main forms and practices of the cities 'greening' by the main stakeholders groups, defining the main resources required to meet this goal and factors that are influencing this process. As a part of the project, we are planning to analyze energy efficiency and energy saving in the Russian cities, waste management, sustainable transport, application of 'green' standards in construction, public health, ecological activism, environmental consumption of the population, water resources management, management of rural and forestry, etc. The results of the project will be in the development of an integrated interdisciplinary model for assessing the degree of transition of Russian megacities (based on Moscow and Kazan examples) to the standards of a 'green' city. The complexity of the model will be achieved by comparing the opinions of different groups of citizens with objective indicators of social and environmental domains of the territory and experts' assessment. The cross-national research team (Dr. Polina Ermolaeva, Kazan Federal University; Prof. Oleg Yanitsky, Institute of Sociology, Moscow; Dr. Irina Kuznetsova, University of Birmingham and other colleagues) has adopted an interdisciplinary research approach integrating urban studies with environmental, social, political and economic sciences. The project was supported by Russian Science Foundation; project No. 17-78-20106. Contact person and project leader: Polina Ermolaeva, polina.ermolaeva@gmail.com

Website: https://russiansustainablecities.wordpress.com

Sustainability Transitionin post-soviet Russia: key achievements and pitfalls

​Russian megacities in the context of new social and environmental challenges: building complex interdisciplinary model of an assessment of 'green' cities and strategies for their development in Russia