Urban Sustainability Actions in Green Cities: Linking Governance, Participation, and Design Characteristics to Environmental and Citizenship Outcomes—Evidence from Eight Years of Green Cities Awards

Urban sustainability actions implemented by local governments play a crucial role in addressing contemporary environmental challenges and advancing sustainable urban development. Beyond their environmental impacts, these local initiatives may also be associated with citizens’ participation, behaviors, and sense of responsibility toward the environment. However, limited empirical research has systematically examined how municipal sustainability initiatives contribute not only to environmental and sustainability outcomes but also to the development of environmental citizenship. This study evaluates urban sustainability actions implemented by local governments during the timespan of eight years (2017–2025) within the framework of the National Green City Awards in Cyprus. Using a structured coding scheme and a dataset of municipal sustainability initiatives, the study analyses the relationships between action characteristics, governance and participation mechanisms, environmental and sustainability outcomes, and environmental citizenship outcomes. The empirical analysis employs descriptive statistics and association levels to examine the relationship between the studied dimensions and sustainability outcomes and environmental citizenship development. The findings highlight that the environmental domain, SDG alignment, and nature-based solutions are significantly associated with the effectiveness of municipal sustainability initiatives. The study contributes to the literature on sustainable urban development and environmental governance by providing an empirical framework for evaluating municipal sustainability actions and by demonstrating their role in fostering environmental citizenship and sustainability-oriented civic engagement.