If you live in Vilnius, you have probably already noticed the advertising posters announcing that Vilnius has become the European Green Capital in 2025. It would seem that we have wiped the noses of the whole of Europe with our ecology and sustainability. But is that really the case? Or maybe these are just well-directed green propaganda tricks and persuasive presentations that managed to fool European bureaucrats and are now trying to do the same to us?
I will try to answer this question from my perspective as an ordinary Vilnius resident, because I live in this city, love it, see its changes and daily life from the inside. In addition, I understand what environmental protection and sustainability are, so I easily notice such manipulations.
Positive
And indeed, you can see things that are improving in the city. For example, the restoration of natural meadows or less frequent mowing of urban meadows. Although influencers ridiculed this in social media clips, depicting Vilnius as an Amazon jungle, this initiative has survived and is actually beautifying the city, giving more space to nature.
Vilnius also welcomed this heating season by renovating the Vilnius CHP plant and finally switching to biofuel. As a result, 90% of its heat energy is now produced from renewable or more sustainable sources.
There are so many positive things. Of course, luxury neighborhoods have been built where wealthier citizens can live, but this is not a green space accessible to the average citizen.
It seems that after receiving the title of European Green Capital, Vilnius no longer feels the need to go green – after all, officially everything is already perfect. You can relax.
It's a shame, but many examples show that the city is green not because of the municipality's efforts, but because of the forests, rivers, and green spaces that have been here for a long time, and the "greening" carried out by the municipality itself exists only in public relations presentations.
Transport challenges
One example is transportation. Immediately after receiving the title of European Green Capital, Vilnius Municipality quickly took steps to make public transportation less accessible, especially for lower-income residents.
True, this has already been done to some extent before - the night buses, which were canceled during the pandemic, never returned, and with them the opportunity to enjoy the city's nightlife without a car disappeared, which is already very limited, since public transport stops running around 23 p.m. Other European capitals have both night transport and regular routes that operate much longer.
However, additional accessibility restrictions are still to come – from July 2025, 1, it is planned to almost double public transport ticket prices. Paradoxically, it is precisely people with lower incomes who live the most sustainably of all city residents, because their economic situation leads to lower consumption and resource use. However, now the municipality, instead of encouraging the most environmentally friendly residents, is preparing to deprive them of the opportunity to move freely around the city.
Vilnius, which received the title of European Green Capital, has pledged to become climate neutral by 2030, that is, within the next five years. However, it is clear that this promise seems so distant to the current city government that they are not even trying to pretend that it will be implemented.
Why? Because you won't find information on the municipality's website about how much greenhouse gas the city emits each year. And that's understandable - with the number of cars growing every year, you probably just don't want to see such statistics. For example, over the past decade, Vilnius city and Vilnius district The number of cars in municipalities has increased by 30% and continues to grow rapidly. You probably notice this yourself when you stand in traffic jams.
Today, every second Vilnius resident uses a car every day, and our car fleet is a paradise of black diesel smoke - it is the oldest in the Baltic States.
Over the years, Vilnius has never managed to create a simple pedestrian street or a clearly defined pedestrian zone, like the ones we find in Beautiful, Šiauliai and other cities. The constantly moving stakes on Gediminas Avenue certainly don't change that - this street is not convenient for pedestrians, because you can never be sure when it will actually be closed to traffic and when it won't.
Chaotic urban planning
It's probably hard to live in a city without noticing how the city center is being densified. How old squares, green spaces, and century-old oak trees are disappearing, and as if after the rain, new ones are sprouting up. apartment buildings and office buildings. At the same time, private housing estates on the outskirts of the city are growing even more. These estates often lack normal infrastructure – no good roads, no public transport, no shops, schools, medical facilities, etc. This means that their residents are condemned to become taxi drivers, transporting their children every day, and traffic jams on the streets, because only cars can reach workplaces or any city services.
At the same time, the city's sleeping areas have been crying for renovation throughout our independence, but continue to fall apart as they weep. They become wonderful scenery for the Chernobyl series and a source of depression for those who are trying to forget our "homo sovieticus" stage. It is very strange that in Poland, in Estonia, even in the crowded Ignalina, the renovation of apartment buildings was completed more than a decade ago, while in the European Green Capital, based on the pace of renovation, it might be completed only after a century. The never-ending Chernobyl series is guaranteed for both us and future generations.
Although these Soviet districts have schools and much needed infrastructure, the "greening" of the city is not taking place by revitalizing these districts. Instead, the city is being intensively "greened" by destroying greenery in the center and increasing dependence on cars.
Pollution out of control in the city
Urban development planning guarantees that transport flows will not decrease, and at the same time, Air pollution, at least until the car park is electrified. It also ensures an increasing heat impact. Yes, Vilnius is a very green city, but the increasingly frequent recurrence of heat waves, if old apartment buildings are not renovated, will cause more and more problems for their residents. In addition, less greenery in the center also guarantees a greater heat and pollution impact.
Vilnius city municipalities The council made a decision to ban coal and peat burning back in 2021, but just before it came into effect, this ban was revoked, and residents were instead invited to consciously choose cleaner fuels. So, those residents who should have thought about it continue to deliberately poison their neighbors by choosing the most polluting fuels.
Nothing significant has been done in terms of managing stormwater and taking into account the increasing number of impermeable surfaces in the city. It is enough to look at the city after heavy rains, when the streets turn into Venetian canals, because the sewage systems designed during the Soviet era can no longer handle the amount of water collected. During rains, you can also notice the beloved Neris River, which turns brown and silts from the city's dirt and oil. This would not have happened if the city had at least taken some care of stormwater treatment and the development of permeable surfaces.
In addition, many individual houses are still not connected to the sewage network, and their wastewater often travels through imperceptible pipes to streams, sharing its "goodies" with those living below. This is especially noticeable in small rivers. For example, in the Naujoji Vilnia swimming pool in Vilnelė, swimming was prohibited for almost the entire summer due to violations of hygiene standards.
Curiosities of waste management
Another proof of the city's "super greenness" is the food waste sorting system, which was supposed to be implemented in 2019. However, with its orange logic, it only started in 2024.
Under this system, the organic waste collection containers built in the city in 2019 remained closed, becoming city decorations. However, it was thought up to distribute orange bags and brown box sets to the townspeople, into which residents had to put organic waste. When the orange bags ran out, residents had to purchase them in stores. So, the orange bag system was launched, the cost of waste management for residents was increased, but instead of composting organic waste, operators of mechanical biological treatment facilities simply piled it up, because the company Energesman, which manages food waste in the Vilnius region, promised to start growing fly larvae only in half a year. And whether it started at all is unclear.
But it is certainly clear that this system is a great example of green brainwashing. Because it is obvious that most of the city's organic waste goes to incinerators, no compost is produced, and the system has not worked from the very beginning. And you don't need to fly to the Moon to see a properly functioning system. In the Alytus region, the organic waste collection and recycling system was implemented back in 2013 (without raising waste management prices for residents) and has been working perfectly to this day. Both residents of individual houses and apartment buildings have separate containers, organic waste is recycled, biogas and compost are produced.
Final thoughts
Vilnius could be called the green capital because of the forests and nature surrounding it. It is truly a unique city because of its contact with nature. However, the city government's "greening efforts" are something else entirely. Many examples show that green is only a public relations presentation of the city, and not the perception of those who govern the city.
The last example is V. Benkunskas, proposing to destroy the globally unique Neris River, which is one of the longest free migration routes for Atlantic salmon, in order to satisfy the interests of some businessmen. The argument is made “below the belt” that this is necessary because in the event of war it will be our evacuation route from the capital. Nature has never defeated this argument, despite the fact that even at maximum speed and with the planned number of ships, it would take about four years to evacuate the residents of the Vilnius region along this route.
Other examples show the identical thinking of city leaders: the greenness of the city is our last priority, and the first is the whims of various businessmen. Of course, one can try to disguise this by using a beehive made from waste, Lukiškiai square, or by putting up "European Green Capital" signs everywhere. But you won't fool your residents with public relations tricks, my dears.
Vilnius must be the European Green Capital, not pretend to be one!
Dr. Svajūnas Plungė – data analyst, associate professor at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences and member of the Council of the Lithuanian Green Party
