This year's edition of the Forum will be an official partner event of the EU Green Week. It will be linked to the EU Action Plan toward a Zero Pollution Ambition as a key action of the European Green Deal.

In this context the aim of the Forum and the consolidated matchmaking – promoted by the European Commission – is to:

(1) demonstrate the high level commitment of the European Commission and its Smart Cities and Communities initiatives to the promotion of zero pollution and smart cities based on a European smart city best practice model,

(2) discuss the future of Smart (Sustainable) Cities and the Smart Cities Marketplace in its function as a hub for synergising with other relevant EU initiatives,

(3) share best practices and good examples from the wider Smart Cities Marketplace context, including the Action Clusters and Initiatives of the Marketplace, as well as adjacent initiatives, and

(4) initiate a dialogue on how successful innovations and demonstrations can be adjusted to Zero Pollution contexts, and, vice versa, which best practices and excellent smart city innovations from the environmental and sustainable scene deserve more attention.

The conference, held online, includes a public two-day conference with a mixture of plenaries and engaging workshop sessions on the following highly relevant topics:

• sharing experiences and good examples with relevance to the Green Deal and/or Zero Pollution Ambition action plan
• making the link on how Smart Cities feed into the EU Action Plan toward a Zero Pollution Ambition as key action of the European Green Deal. See how Smart Cities are key factors in these developments regarding the topics ranging from Clean Energy to the Renovation Wave and specific activities in Transport & Mobility as well as ICT
• providing a platform to discuss some burning issues of smart cities today (post COVID recovery related, funding opportunities)
• providing matchmaking gearing for specific needs of city administrations and informing about financial and funding instruments
• helping Smart Cities Marketplace stakeholders in realizing their projects (the Smart City Marketplace funnel in its most crystallized function).