Green Investment Simulation Game at New Urban Habits Festival, Bucharest

The NONA national capacity-building seminar for Romania took place on 21 June, in Bucharest, within the New Urban Habits Festival: the first festival dedicated to the urban future in Romania.

The workshop was hosted at the Mihai Eminescu Amphitheatre and was included in the festival’s EDUCATE session. The session was facilitated by NONA project partner URBASOFIA under the title "Green Investment Simulation Game."

The visual and graphic materials used during the workshop were prepared with the support of NONA project partner C-EDU, contributing to the interactive and accessible format of the simulation. The workshop was held in Romanian and was designed as an interactive role-play simulation.

Participants were invited to take on different roles from the green investment ecosystem, including local authority, NGO representative, European funding representative, private bank representative and civic crowdfunding initiator. Through this format, the participants negotiated a joint investment and governance package for the regeneration of one of the NONA pilot sites in Cluj-Napoca, namely the Avram Iancu 13-15 site. The aim of the exercise was to explore, in a practical and engaging way, how public, private, financial and community actors can cooperate to make green urban regeneration projects more investment-ready.

The simulation encouraged participants to reflect on key aspects such as shared governance, blended finance, investment readiness, public value, community benefits, risk-sharing and long-term sustainability. During the exercise, each group worked with role cards, a pilot site profile, a negotiation matrix and a common set of rules. At the end of the session, the teams presented their proposed investment packages, highlighting the contribution of each actor, the governance mechanism selected, the expected benefits for the community and the main barriers encountered during the negotiation.

The seminar contributed to the wider NONA objective of strengthening local capacities for mainstreaming green investment into the revitalisation of degraded areas. It also provided a practical format for translating the NONA methodology into an accessible learning experience for urban professionals, students, community actors and other participants interested in sustainable urban transformation.