On September 10, in a conference room not far from the Venetian harbor, Heraklion’s Deputy Mayor for Finance and Tourism, Giorgos Agrimanakis, welcomed delegates of the Urban Agenda for Sustainable Tourism. The city, we are told, is not just a member of this pan-European sustainable tourism network but also a coordinator—a fancy title that suggests Crete’s capital now doubles as a policy laboratory for the continent.
The speech ticked the right boxes: sustainability, Green Deal, certificates, SMEs, and strategy. According to Agrimanakis, Heraklion’s role as Action Leader is “recognized as particularly important,” with contributions to working groups, consultations, and content production. What this looks like in practice is less obvious to the casual local, who still dodges construction dust and tour buses every morning.
But never mind that. The European partners have given Heraklion the clipboard and the whistle. It is leading “Action 2,” a project with the kind of title only Brussels could love: Supporting destinations in the use of sustainability certifications for SMEs in transition.
The official aims of the Action Plan include:
- cataloguing and assessing sustainability certification systems in tourism (GSTC, EMAS, EU Ecolabel, and the rest of the acronym soup),
- helping local governments create incentives for SMEs to adopt these systems,
- integrating sustainability tools into destination strategies so private businesses and public goals can shake hands,
- developing step-by-step templates and guidance manuals that can be applied across EU cities and islands.
This all sounds impressive, and perhaps it is. The Urban Agenda network itself was born in January 2024, designed to bring together cities, member states, EU institutions, and experts to co-create policies. The last in-person meeting, in Barcelona this February, celebrated the first results and gave Heraklion a pat on the back for bridging island and urban policies.
Now, with the September gathering hosted here until the 11th, the city gets to showcase “local applications of policy” and strengthen its chances for new funding streams. In the words of Agrimanakis, it even multiplies Heraklion’s international visibility.
Visibility, of course, is not the same as impact. Sustainability certifications are lovely on paper, but for the resident stuck in traffic behind another double-parked tour bus, the benefits may be harder to see. Still, Heraklion has positioned itself as the Mediterranean’s guide on how to go green—at least in theory.
