Viable Cities is growing and now welcomes Maria, Lars and Karin to the program office. They bring more muscle to our joint work towards the mission of climate neutral and sustainable cities by 2030.
Maria Tengvard (KTH), Lars Johansson (RISE) and Karin Linnea Petrusson (SVID).
On March 1, both Maria Tengvard and Lars Johansson joined the program office.
Maria Tengvard comes most recently from the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth where she mainly worked with sustainable urban development, the European Regional Fund and the promotion of export of environmental technology. She has solid experience of climate, energy and sustainability work linked to cities, both in a Swedish and international context. Maria Tengvard will be responsible for Viable Cities' involvement in the EU initiative Net Zero Cities.
- I believe that I can contribute with my understanding of the conditions and opportunities for different actors to contribute to the transition and through my broad network in both private and public organisations, she says.
- Reaching the goal of climate-neutral cities by 2030 is no easy task - but it is both possible and essential. The great interest from cities around the world to test new solutions, think outside the box and the willingness to learn from each other shows that this is happening!
Lars Johansson will support the 23 cities in the Climate Neutral Cities 2030 initiative and the work with the Climate Neutral Cities mission, including through the Viable Cities toolkit, but also design and develop ways of working to strengthen shared learning.
- I am an expert in riding the elevator from overall vision to concrete action. I hope to inspire and support both at the program level and together with the cities in how the mission can be concretized to meet contextual challenges and obstacles, says Lars.
Lars has extra good conditions for quickly entering the work as he has worked since 2019 within Climate Neutral Uppsala 2030 and close to Climate Neutral Enköping 2030 as an innovation leader and advisor. He has a background in politics, public administration, academia, business and the innovation system and has in his various roles and contexts worked with sustainability and climate since 2004.
Karin Linnea Petrusson is an industrial designer and has been contributing her design expertise to several of Viable Cities' areas of activity since the new year. Among other things, she is involved in the development process for the initiative Climate Neutral Cities 2030 and Climate City Contract 2030. Karin is employed at SVID, the Swedish Industrial Design Foundation, and has, among other things, worked in the Renewal Lab, which was created in 2016 by SVID on behalf of the Ministry of Social Affairs and the Swedish Municipalities and Regions to explore user-centered and needs-driven innovation and forms of collaboration in a lab environment.
How will we achieve Climate Neutral Cities by 2030?
1. We need to get better at solving the governance puzzle. This means finding and using the most effective methods and approaches to accelerate climate action at all levels.
2. citizens and civil society need to be more involved. We need to move from consultation to co-creation. This will be difficult because it involves compromises and it will disrupt traditional hierarchies and ways of working.
3. We need to become exponentially better at scaling what works and phasing out what does not. A prerequisite for this is to reshape the underlying structures of our socio-technical system.
