Green roofs offer a large profitable potential to strengthen and preserve ecosystem services, and the project One roof - five opportunities shows that there are many opportunities to realize this potential. Henrik Dahl, Future Position X, writes about it on our blog.
The starting point for Climate Breakfast 8 was the project One roof, five possibilities. The project has investigated how roofs - with a focus on water, energy, cultivation, recreation and biodiversity - can affect a property's economy and what socio-economic benefits they can generate. Watch the Climate Breakfast afterwards and take part in the presentations.
Viable Cities now opens our largest call to date - the total budget for call #8 is SEK 200 million. The Climate Neutral Cities 2030 initiative thus grows from nine cities to twenty.
Does your city want to help accelerate the urban climate transition and work towards a good life for all within the limits of the planet? Apply and become a Viable Cities pioneer city.
Industry and business have a very important role in the transition to the climate-neutral and sustainable cities and communities of the future. In the Viable Business Hub, several major industries in Umeå and the surrounding area, together with various social actors, have been gathering for a year to develop the sustainable industrial environments of the future.
On behalf of Viable Cities, our member Klimatkommunerna has made an overview of how municipalities structure their climate work. Among other things, they have identified some key factors for successful climate transition in cities. Listen to Filippa Borgström, Klimatkommunerna, Elin Sundqvist, Helsingborg City and Sara Olsson, Järfälla Municipality, at the first Climate Breakfast of the spring, which you can watch here.
Phase one of the Climate Smart Cities Challenges, Viable Cities' first global collaboration, closed at the end of January. Now all partners will review the 58 applications from cities across four continents to be selected for Phase 2, the innovation competition that will be launched at Expo 2020 Dubai.
The world's cities are facing major challenges. We need to act quickly, forcefully and together to contribute to more sustainable urban development. You can now apply for support within ENUTC to explore how research and innovation in urban transition processes can contribute to sustainable urban development. The Swedish Energy Agency, Formas and Viable Cities together announce approximately SEK 28 million to Swedish actors in 7-9 projects.
Climate City Contract 2030, which was signed by nine cities, four government agencies and Viable Cities last December, is a long-term commitment to accelerate the climate transition in cities.
Olga Kordas, Viable Cities Program Manager, talks about the way forward in 2021.
On behalf of Viable Cities, our member Klimatkommunerna has made an overview of how a number of municipalities structure their climate work. They see that in recent years, more and more have adopted long-term goals or roadmaps for their climate work, and have also identified some key factors for successful climate transition in cities.
The report "100 climate-neutral cities by 2030 - by and for the citizens", proposes the development of a "multi-level and co-creative process formalized in a Climate City Contract, adjusted to the realities of each city". In Sweden, nine cities signed Climate City Contract 2030 on 11 December, along with four national government agencies and Viable Cities. In this blog post, Viable Cities and Dark Matter Laboratories explore how we democratically create commitments to transition to sustainable and climate-neutral cities.
On December 17, the government presented the research and innovation bill that sets the direction of Sweden's research policy for the next four years. The next generation of strategic innovation programs are included.
It is now clear which projects have been granted funds in the call for Energy Positive Neighbourhoods, a collaboration between Viable Cities and JPI Urban Europe. Cities4PEDs, Interact, PED-ID and Trans-PED, all with Swedish partners, are now tasked with facilitating learning between cities and countries to create energy positive neighbourhoods in Europe.
To transition to climate-neutral and sustainable cities, we need to communicate with citizens, business and many other stakeholders. In this climate breakfast, communication strategist Therese Ek talks about how Lund municipality works to coordinate sustainability communication. We also get reflections on the topic from Annika Egan Sjölander, who researches communication for sustainable societies.
Today, December 11, 2020, is a big day for the climate transition in cities. The first climate contracts in Europe have now been signed by the political leadership of nine Swedish cities as well as by the Directors-General of four government agencies and Viable Cities. "Swedish cities are now taking the lead in Europe," says Allan Larsson, Chairman of the Board of Viable Cities.
A municipality is its residents, its businesses, its visitors, its associations and all the other people who inhabit or visit the place. As an organization, the municipality can do a lot for the climate - but we can never become a climate-neutral city by 2030 without doing it together with everyone else in the place. And here, communication has a very important role to play. So writes Therese Ek, communications strategist in Lund on our blog.
In November this year, we launched the first stage of the Climate Smart Cities Challenge. With this initiative, we hope to find the most important challenges to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and implement the most promising solutions in cities globally. But what does it take to scale climate solutions in cities?
During the EU Week of Regions&Cities, the Covenants of Mayors brought together a wide range of cities and regions. The seminar Governance models for climate neutrality showed that cities and regions are moving faster towards climate change than nations. This is what portfolio strategist Lena Holmberg says in a blog post.
How do you work long-term and systematically with innovation? Vinnova and Viable Cities are now launching a project to develop skills, methods and tools for innovation management for climate-neutral and sustainable cities. Climate Breakfast 5 was hosted by Glenn Gran from Vinnova, Lisa Olsson, City of Helsingborg and Ellen Grahn, Umeå Municipality.
Stories about how good everyday life in the climate-smart city will be are, in a way, a fairy tale because they are not yet true. Our chief storyteller Per Grankvist explains why some of the most common fairy tales include site-specific details that make them more believable, and why it's important for urban planners to follow suit.
Digital tools can be used in many different ways to accelerate the climate transition. During Transition Lab Forum 4, a workshop entitled "Digital tools for transition in practical climate work" was held to provide an insight into what tools exist, how they can be used and why.
Self-driving buses, collaboration with construction companies and an ambitious carbon budget. These are some of the things happening in Järfälla municipality as they work towards a climate-neutral city. Read more about the construction of the new Barkarbystaden area in the fourth blog post from the cities in the Climate Neutral Cities 2030 initiative. Progress reports from Enköping, Växjö and Lund have already been published.
Climate Breakfast 4 was organized in collaboration with Drive Sweden and focused on different pieces of the puzzle that are necessary in the transition to a transport system that is sustainable, safe and accessible to all.
The Climate Smart Cities Challenge is an invitation to cities around the world to participate in a competition aimed at stimulating and scaling up innovative solutions for the climate transition. The competition gives cities the opportunity to work with a global pool of experts to stimulate and scale up innovative ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and create other social benefits in cities.
Transition Lab Forum 4, which was organized together with the City of Gothenburg, focused on how digital tools can help us move faster on the road to climate-neutral cities.
We offered practical inspiration and good examples from Sweden and abroad, reflections with politicians and experts, and a digital study visit to Gothenburg.
Our third climate breakfast was about financing the climate transition. Viable Cities' Finance and Procurement Strategist Charlotta Möller introduced the topic, followed by a discussion with Fedra Vanhuyse, Head of Unit Societal Transitions, Stockholm Environmental Institute, and Björn Bergstrand, Head of Sustainability, Kommuninvest.
Several Swedish cities are working on the transition to climate-neutral cities in 2030 within the framework of Viable Cities. During Climate Breakfast 2, Umeå, Uppsala and Malmö shared their experiences from the work of visualizing the climate transition based on some development projects where different tools have been used.
Lund municipality has achieved its climate targets for 2020 - they have reduced their emissions by 50 percent between 1990-2020 for the entire geographical area of the municipality. Thea Ohlander Arfwidsson, Project Manager Climate Neutral Lund 2030 and Therese Ek, Communications Strategist, tell us more about what is happening in Lund Municipality right now on our blog.
Edward Andersson, Democratic Society, spoke at Viable Cities' first climate breakfast on the theme of citizen involvement in the climate transition - for real. On our blog, he and his colleague Namita Kambli develop their thoughts on this topic.
On September 30, Viable Cities held its first climate breakfast. Guests were Edward Andersson from Democratic Society, who gave concrete tips on how to develop citizen engagement and Charlotte Gustafsson-Brynielsson from Växjö reflected on how they work with it in Växjö.
"It always seems impossible until it is done." Maria Vassilakou, EU mission board on climate neutral cities, quoted Nelson Mandela when she attended Transition Lab Forum 3, September 16-17.
She was one of many speakers who, over two days, gave strength and inspiration to continue working on the mission: Climate Neutral Cities 2030.
The municipality of Enköping is testing new solutions at Myran, a 74 hectare development area in the municipality, to learn and achieve the goal of a completely climate-neutral municipality by 2030. They are also giving young people a voice in urban development. On our blog, project manager Thomas Adlercreutz explains the current situation.
Achieving the profound climate transition we need requires cooperation between all members of society at a level never seen before. Citizen engagement and local Climate City Contract is the theme of the Viable Cities Transition Lab Forum 3, on September 16-17 (press release).
At regular intervals, our chief storyteller Per Grankvist will write about his reflections on storytelling as a tool, based on what we do, meetings we have and ideas from people and projects we are inspired by. The article series is part of the development of a model for engaging storytelling, the first version of which will be completed before the end of the year.
In this article, Kes McCormick, program coordinator for the Sharing Cities Sweden initiative, briefly present the mission's approach with a focus on climate-neutral cities, which raises both exciting opportunities and vexing questions.
Enköping, Gothenburg, Järfälla, Lund, Malmö, Stockholm, Umeå, Uppsala and Växjö. These nine Swedish cities will lead the way, testing and experimenting to inspire and accelerate the work towards the mission: Climate Neutral Cities 2030 - with a good life for all within the limits of the planet. In a series of blog posts from the nine cities, we can follow their work. First up is Växjö municipality.
The city of Helsingborg is one of 12 finalists in the European Capital of Innovation 2020. The winning city, announced during the European Research and Innovation Days (September 22-24), will receive one million Euros. We keep our fingers crossed.
Through the strategic innovation program Viable Cities, Sweden has become internationally visible as a country at the forefront of climate and sustainability in cities. This is shown by an evaluation three years after the start of the program.
Within Viable Cities, we have felt the need to develop a text that can frame the work we do together to achieve our common mission: climate-neutral cities with a good life for all within the boundaries of the planet. Our Chief Storyteller Per Grankvist has formulated this in the Declaration.
To support the local implementation of the SDGs, the Local 2030 Sweden Hub has been formed, a network of organizations in Sweden and the Nordic region that will work together to promote local sustainable urban development. Viable Cities is one of the members.
Nordic Innovation has granted NOK 3 million to the project "Nordic Transition partnership", which aims to accelerate the transition to climate neutrality by 2030 in small and medium-sized municipalities. In the project, Viable Cities collaborates with Tampere in Finland, Reykjavik in Iceland and Smart Innovation Norway in Norway.
Clearly, the coronavirus crisis can teach us something about transition work. But what? That we should do what the experts say? This is what researchers Sofie Joosse and Martin Westin from the Viable Cities project Sustainable urban lifestyles through nudging and citizen participation discuss on our blog.
Currently, Viable Cities has two calls open, one is a European collaboration and the other is about strengthening the innovation capacity of cities.
Within the framework of Viable Cities, eight cities are now inspiring and inspiring other cities, in Sweden and around the world, so that as many as possible reach climate neutrality by 2030.
On Thursday, April 23, eight Swedish cities will take a big step forward to accelerate the climate transition - Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö, Lund, Växjö, Uppsala, Umeå and Enköping. They want to lead, test and experiment to become climate neutral by 2030.
The Viable Cities annual report for 2019 is ready. A lot happened during the year, we launched the Viable Cities Transition Lab, many new exciting projects received funding and we organized and participated in many events.
On 11 December 2019, Viable Cities and the European Commission organized the European Viable Cities Day for the second year in a row. This is the same day that the European Commission's Chairman Ursula von der Leyen presented The European Green Deal.
We now need a team player for the program office at KTH Campus who can act strategically as well as quickly and efficiently.
Urban cultivation with waste heat from data centers and models of climate-smart music and sports events are examples of 12 projects receiving a total of €28 million to accelerate the climate transition.
A newly launched anthology that deepens and problematizes the discussion on innovation in cities, with a specific focus on Swedish conditions.
It looks at the promise of artificial intelligence (AI) to enable the sustainable smart cities of the future.
Viable Cities is a strategic innovation program with the mission of achieving climate-neutral cities by 2030, ensuring a good quality of life for all within the planet’s limits. The program is funded by the Swedish Energy Agency, Vinnova and Formas and coordinated by KTH.
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