“You can’t resolve the climate crisis without resolving cities,” says Rogier van den Berg, acting global director at WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities, in a new podcast. Speaking with Kes McComick of the International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics at Lund University, van den Berg explains how WRI Ross Center is using the Prize for Cities to showcase urban innovations around the world, to explore how exactly they were successful, and to promote exchange and learning.

Van den Berg points to the example of 2020-2021 grand prize winner Rosario, Argentina, which was awarded $250,000 by the Prize for Cities’ independent jury for its large-scale urban agriculture program. The program and a system of related markets and jobs programs “reshaped” communities and the city, he says, revitalizing the economy while addressing climate change at the same time.

The 2021-2022 grand prize winner will be announced shortly from a pool of five diverse finalists from Colombia, France, India, Pakistan and the Philippines.

Talking Transformations is a podcast series produced by the International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics on “current trends in science, technology, governance, and behaviours to transform our society and economy towards sustainability.”

Schuyler Null is Communications Manager for WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities.