Lviv hosted Symposium on 17–18 October 2025, bringing together around 100 participants from Ukraine and abroad. Among them were researchers, engineers, urbanists, environmental experts, representatives of international organisations and civil society initiatives. 

Over two days, experts discussed policies and reforms needed to achieve climate neutrality, innovations in construction, spatial planning, land management, as well as green investments and mechanisms for energy-efficient renovation. 
To deepen the discussions, the programme was structured into four thematic tracks that allowed participants to focus on key areas of recovery and the green transition: 

• Track 1 focused on policies, regulations and reforms for a climate-neutral Ukraine. Discussions covered alignment of national legislation with EU requirements, the role of the National Energy and Climate Plan, just transition, and challenges in decarbonising transport and heating. 

• Track 2 explored innovations in construction and reconstruction. Experts shared practices in material reuse, the application of biomaterials and artificial intelligence for assessing construction waste, and cases of adaptive building reuse within a circular economy framework. 

• Track 3 addressed land use and spatial planning, including land resource management, balanced territorial planning, development of protected areas, land analysis tools, and challenges faced by communities during wartime. 

• Track 4 focused on investments for Net Zero: green finance, reforms of public investment management, energy-efficient renovation of buildings, and the introduction of innovative financial instruments. 

In conclusion, moderators and participants emphasised the need to integrate climate approaches across all areas of Ukraine’s recovery, strengthen institutional capacity at the local level, and enhance cooperation between public institutions, academia, experts and civil society. The Symposium highlighted that Ukraine’s recovery can become a model of resilient, innovative and climate-neutral development. 

The Symposium was organised by the Land and Housing Research Centre of the Kharkiv School of Architecture, Ecoaction, the University of Oxford Programme for Sustainable Urban Development, UN-Habitat Urban Lab Ukraine, CEE Bankwatch, and the Ukrainian Catholic University with support from EU4ClimateResilience.