We are building momentum by moving from fragmented projects to an ecosystem of efforts all pulling in the same direction. Here we bring together the research and innovation initiatives funded under Viable Cities.
The initiative, part of the Sharing Cities Sweden program, aims to explore the social drivers and potential of the sharing economy in communities and cities in Sweden. It will focus on how housing companies can facilitate sharing between tenants and provide space for...
The initiative in Stockholm aims to improve the ability of cities to manage the complex decision-making situations that arise and find appropriate measures to reduce emissions. An innovation team with the municipality, academia and business is established as the engine of the transition work. A digital decision support with simulation ...
Karlstad municipality has the goal of being fossil-free and climate-smart and is one of the few municipalities that includes both geographical and consumption-based emissions in this ambition. Climate work must permeate the entire municipality and it must be easy for residents and companies to...
Kalmar is one of Sweden's fastest growing residential cities - and also a distinctly rural municipality. This combination presents challenges but also opportunities for sustainable growth. There is a strong political will, with clear goals for the transition, and the municipality...
Climate-neutral Kristianstad 2030 will accelerate the transition to a sustainable, resource-efficient and climate-neutral society through innovation-driven, co-creative work characterized by commitment and participation. The initiative strengthens institutional capacity, is based on local conditions and uses collaborative platforms to create consensus....
The initiative develops models for common digital infrastructure for resource flows that connect urban farming, real estate and district heating networks. This is the basis for small-scale urban food production that is climate-smart, efficient and profitable in industrial areas.
Järfälla will be at the forefront of environmental and climate work and the municipality is growing with thousands of planned homes and workplaces. The major urban development projects underway create both challenges and opportunities to make smart, sustainable choices for a climate-neutral municipality right from the start.
Klimatkampen Uppsala aims to accelerate the climate transition and facilitate more sustainable choices in everyday life for Uppsala residents. The initiative will engage and inform Uppsala residents in various ways about how they can reduce their climate impact.
Climate Neutral Örebro 2030 will create a platform for collaboration that leads to structural and cultural system innovations for climate change, in both new and existing neighborhoods. Örebro's strengths around carbon budget with three perspectives, systems thinking for energy communities, citizen dialogues and digitalization are important pillars....
Karlstad Municipality and companies in the city have come a long way in climate work, not least through the Climate Neutral Cities 2030 initiative. The work on climate investment plans coincides with the development of a new governance model, which creates a window of opportunity to build the plan into governance processes. The preliminary study will...
In recent years, Mariestad Municipality has taken several significant steps towards climate change. Already in 2015, the municipality decided with political consensus and in cooperation with local industry to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement and Agenda 2030.
This feasibility study will examine the conditions that exist and the mobilization required for the municipalities' journey towards climate neutrality. The results of the study will highlight the needs and conditions for a regional transition support and provide proposals for strategic choices, both in terms of organization and...
The initiative is part of the Sharing Cities Sweden program. The understanding of the new business models is key to implementing "business model ecologies" in our cities. Therefore, analysis of business model ecologies is being carried out in several European cities. This effort makes it possible to estimate...
Gävle municipality has an environmental strategy program with the goal of becoming climate neutral by 2035, including consumption-based emissions, and already has a comprehensive climate roadmap. In addition, Gävle will build one of Europe's most sustainable districts, Näringen.
City as a Platform is an innovation initiative that brings together 18 municipalities to explore, test, implement and collaborate on common IoT platforms to support societal benefits in cities. The initiative will also ensure national anchoring and propose a national management model of a minimum framework ...
The initiative will help the town of Röstånga to become a fully renewable "plus energy town" in terms of energy. Knowledge and decision-making data on energy system solutions are produced for the residential environment R:ekobyn with 30 households with a view to replicability adapted to local conditions.
Östersund will become climate neutral by 2030. To realize this, an action and climate investment plan for the municipality, companies and residents of the city will be developed. In connection with this, an analysis of socio-economic effects, emission efficiency linked to cost and...
This feasibility study aims to explore how the smart city can best support its citizens and connected things in terms of digital infrastructure. How are we connected to services and functions in 2030? What services and business models might exist? Which...
The City of Stockholm and its partners will work towards a comprehensive transition of travel habits, land use and vehicle fleet in Stockholm's inner city. This is a step towards an emission-free inner city and a climate-positive Stockholm in 2030. In the system demonstrator, the environmental zone...
The initiative will explore how digitalization can affect the demand and supply of heated space in buildings, by introducing space-sharing services. It also explores new ways to measure energy use based on activity rather than per square meter. The focus is on...
The initiative, which is part of the Sharing Cities Sweden program, aims to reduce energy use and climate impact by developing the sharing economy in smaller cities. By using Karlstad and other smaller cities in a dialog with Karlstad, the initiative will answer the question of...
Helsingborg's ambition is to offer its residents a high quality of life within the limits of the planet. The city of Helsingborg has an ambitious climate and energy plan with the goal of reaching zero emissions for the municipality's area by 2035. As part of this, a local Paris Agreement was launched,...
Climate Neutral Borlänge 2030 aims to create collaborative forms, new processes and methods to enable the transformative changes required to succeed in the rapid climate transition.
The initiative will explore ways to encourage more people to consume food in more environmentally and climate-smart ways. The goal is to understand how environmental information about different foods, together with smart approaches (nudging), can change consumer buying behavior.
The initiative aims to change the way we live and travel in everyday life. With a holistic approach to mobility and housing, the initiative will increase resource efficiency through sharing services, digitization and innovative thinking about the form, operation and use of buildings. Smarter investments will enable a new architecture that frees up...
Sharing Cities Sweden is a national program for the sharing economy in cities. The program aims to put Sweden on the map as a country that actively and critically works with the sharing economy in cities. In sharing economy test beds in Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö and...
The purpose and objective of the design phase is to explore and identify innovation capacities, solutions and policy barriers, and to develop the existing partnership with more stakeholders towards the implementation of a long-term sustainable and climate-neutral neighborhood that promotes sustainable lifestyles, within the neighborhood and in the surrounding...
The initiative will examine how urban planning can promote sustainable urban lifestyles. The focus is on knowledge about citizen participation and nudging as strategies to promote a more sustainable everyday life.
To achieve greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, while managing increased urbanization, cities need to find optimal strategies to transform local energy use and supply. In this initiative, we are developing an Urban Building Mobility...
This feasibility study will investigate how delimited climate investment plans for a municipal administration and a municipal company can be designed to clarify how to accelerate the climate transition and make costs and societal benefits visible. The preliminary study will develop business-oriented approaches and an inclusive process to strengthen the...
The initiative aims to capture innovative solutions from pilot projects in several municipalities. This is to accelerate climate-neutral urban development by enabling new solutions with great potential to become standard in new and existing areas more quickly.
The preliminary study will carry out and develop citizen dialogues linked to the transition and sustainable passenger transport in the municipality of Östersund. The work on the climate transition can lead to conflicts between those who govern and those who need to make changes. A common positive vision of the society of the future, combined with reality-based...
The initiative will explore how social and climate impacts can be measured and calculated in sustainable bond solutions, thereby helping to mobilize capital. The market for sustainable investments is growing. The aim is to open up investments in new models and solutions...
This initiative has two objectives. It will provide a policy-relevant overview of experiences gained as a basis for systematic learning on how system innovation in sustainable urban development has developed in practice. It will also contribute to the further development of these experiences and...
The initiative involves developing models for recycling waste heat from data centers for urban food production and soil cultivation in dense urban environments. The goal is to construct a first facility in Gothenburg with greenhouses tightly integrated with the data center, powered by waste heat and...
The initiative is part of the Sharing Cities Sweden program. The purpose of this initiative is to investigate whether digital sharing platforms based on a more user-centered sharing philosophy can solve the problems of the previous platforms, which tended to be more resource-centered.
The feasibility study will develop scalable processes and frameworks and produce a basis for decisions on climate investments to increase Eskilstuna's and Helsingborg's opportunities to achieve their climate goals. The methodology can be used by other cities. "The city's journey" refers to the seven parts ...
The initiative will examine the conditions for developing the Urban ICT Arena test bed in Kista into a so-called quadruple helix environment, with collaboration between academia, business, public organisations and civil society. With a focus on the link to local civil society, the initiative will tackle the energy challenge...
The initiative focuses on exploring the needs and limitations for smaller municipalities to use smart solutions for collaborative infrastructure. In Herrljunga and Kungälv, the initiative will investigate opportunities to use city networks as a framework for digitizing the municipalities' water and electricity networks,...
Växjö municipality wants to collaborate with actors in society to develop an action plan and methods for the transition to a society with low climate impact. The initiative will work with the overall picture for a climate-neutral Växjö, but also focus on the areas of construction and...
The initiative will explore the possibility of establishing a large-scale test bed for citizens to produce and share energy services with each other. Citizens will also be able to deliver renewable electricity or power balancing to the energy market. There is a link to the test bed for the sharing economy that is being established under the...
The initiative is part of the Sharing Cities Sweden program. Many sharing economy initiatives launched around the world have not succeeded as expected. Lack of knowledge about the underlying causes of (non) adoption, scaling and mainstreaming among users are the main reasons. The initiative aims...
The initiative will develop digital solutions that make it possible to analyze energy consumption for both property management and healthcare operations. The aim is to identify and visualize opportunities for better energy use.
Building materials are a major source of climate emissions in our cities. The initiative focuses on new ways to reduce the extraction of new materials and to use materials already present in the urban environment, including through reuse from demolition and redevelopment projects.
E-Laas proposes a new and operational energy-based approach to design multimodal urban logistics systems. In E-Laas, urban delivery systems are compared with their energy use including micro-platforms and new ways to combine charging, automation and freight parking. This makes it possible to relate logistics...
Borås's local carbon budget states that both the municipal group and Borås's consumption-based emissions should be reduced by 16% each year. Climate Neutral Borås 2030 aims to realize the significant emission reductions required while creating a fair and inclusive transition.
The purpose of the study is to introduce methods in the municipality's regular decision-making processes that clarify climate-related benefits in a way that guides investment decisions, and to contribute to private sector actors, who are responsible for the majority of climate-related investments in the city, eventually...
We want to move from an energy system that relies heavily on fossil fuels and increasingly on bioenergy and waste; to one that is entirely built around waste heat from electrified processes, heat pumps and "smart Al powered efficiency". We...
Achieving climate goals requires digital solutions, but with digitalization, the vulnerability of cities to cyberattacks is increasing. To prevent cyber attacks, vulnerabilities need to be identified. This is very difficult and requires an understanding of the city-wide system architecture and significant...
The feasibility study highlights climate and health as a combined driver of the city's climate transition. Measuring better health is as important as reducing climate emissions and the feasibility study lays a foundation for this through urban planning and stakeholder involvement.
The feasibility study will explore how Helsingborg can further increase the pace of the climate transition work by strengthening the collective capacity for transition. The ambition is to create a process for the city's administrations, municipally owned companies, and voluntary organizations to be involved in engaging more...
In Smart and Climate Neutral Lund 2030, an innovation team will be formed consisting of design companies, research institutions and a cross-sectoral team centrally located in the municipality. Climate-Neutral Lund 2030 2.0 will build on the approaches, networks, methods and results of the...
The initiative will create conditions for various companies, associations, research and public activities to benefit from open data from the ectogrid™ energy system. By making ectogrid™ data available, digitalization and citizen involvement can contribute to increased energy system optimization, e.g. by balancing energy types and loads.
To achieve the sustainability goals of the UN's Agenda 2030 initiative, municipalities must make their cities sustainable. Promoting innovation and new ways of working together can build a culture of experimentation that enables large-scale systemic change. The Accelerate project, by developing a...
The initiative will examine the conditions for a demonstration project for flexible energy systems in buildings based on solar electricity, local storage and controllable loads in the newly established district of Brunnshög in Lund municipality.
In the feasibility study "Norrliden - A million program for the climate", Kalmar municipality joins forces with Kalmarhem AB, GodaHus and a number of property owners to identify, prioritize and plan effective climate investments, with the aim of accelerating the climate transition.
The initiative will develop a dynamic visualization tool for more effective urban planning. The tool will provide better decision support by visualizing and communicating the consequences of urban development for the energy system. The tool is developed in consultation with Kiruna municipality where the benefits will be significant...
With broad inclusion, a climate program is designed for and with actors from public organisations, business, the non-profit sector and academia to include everyone who lives and works in the municipality. During the work, five areas have been identified that Eskilstuna's stakeholders need to put extra focus on...
Uppsala is committed to leading the climate transition and achieving the goals in line with Agenda 2030 by accelerating the transformative changes necessary for the climate. Uppsala Municipality and the Uppsala Climate Protocol network will develop an action plan for...
Car traffic in the city needs to be reduced - both to create a more attractive city and to reduce the climate impact of traffic. At the same time, mobility as a service is a growing trend. This initiative demonstrates "car-free living" in the Xplorion property in Södra...
Since the EU Green energy directive 2019/944 was established, the concept of energy communities and what it can and cannot be, has been an ongoing discussion in Sweden, the EU and internationally. Basically, energy communities are about legal entities being able to be part of a...
An important purpose of developing climate investment plans is to look at the total investment needed to achieve the climate targets in order to understand the capital requirements of the transition. This feasibility study will further develop this work by exploring future investments...
TOD2 will examine station areas in Sweden, Denmark and China to develop a framework with perspectives on public spaces, shared mobility and innovative mobility hubs, and carbon neutrality toolboxes. This aims to contribute to the achievement of decarbonization and...
Upplands-Bro has the largest increase in carbon dioxide emissions among Swedish municipalities since the Paris Agreement. To achieve the goals, a concerted effort is needed together with the business community. The preliminary study will conduct economic analyses of climate measures and, in collaboration with the business community, highlight economic opportunities for climate investments, such as...
Based in Gothenburg, the initiative will explore how the environmental impact of urban logistics can be minimized with the widespread introduction of autonomous delivery robots.
The initiative will, based on Gävle, identify drivers and barriers for property owners (mainly small and medium-sized) to strengthen and preserve ecosystem services.
Increased digitization makes cities increasingly vulnerable to cyber attacks, where computers are compromised by malicious actors in order to cause damage and disruption. The higher the degree of digitization, the more devastating the potential attacks. In order to mitigate cyber...
As early as 2012, Linköping City Council decided that the municipality should be carbon neutral by 2025. A long-term climate and energy program is now being developed with the aim of defining proposals for overall umbrella goals for climate work in the coming decades.
City as a Platform is an innovation initiative that brings together 18 municipalities to explore, test, implement and collaborate on common IoT platforms to support societal benefits in cities. The initiative will also ensure national anchoring and propose a national management model of a minimum framework ...
The objective is to develop a roadmap for mobility hubs that will help create long-term, resilient yet flexible mobility solutions. The aim is to facilitate the realization of a coherent network of hubs not only at the municipal level, but ultimately create...
Mo-Bo is a housing concept with mobility services that solve residents' transportation needs in a socially, economically and ecologically sustainable way. The sharing economy and mobility services are paving the way for innovative architecture where more people and goods can be transported by fewer vehicles, which means smarter...
Climate change and finance are currently managed mainly in isolation, and municipal financial processes do not always align with climate targets. Integration of climate and financial governance is needed to effectively steer towards net zero. To meet this need, the...
The initiative will shorten the links between research and practice in working with three-dimensional (3D) building layout to accommodate multiple owners and many functions in the same building. This creates both opportunities and challenges for energy optimization (e). The initiative focuses on...
In 2022, Viable Cities has been responsible for a government commission "Support for innovation work in sustainable urban and community development in Norrbotten and Västerbotten" with the working name Thriving North. In the assignment, six municipalities (Kiruna, Gällivare, Boden, Luleå, Skellefteå and Umeå) were identified as well as...
A unique development is taking place in Skellefteå. There is strong local industrial development and construction and planning in Skellefteå as never before. Intensive work is already underway to coordinate projects and promote sustainable community development...
In one of Sweden's most densely populated areas with heavy traffic, Lund, together with a number of stakeholders, will create a mobility system with reduced emissions while maintaining accessibility. The mobility system will also be linked to a local climate-neutral energy system in the area where energy...
Linköping wants to map the climate impact of the municipality's purchases, through environmental commuting analyses, to increase knowledge of the activities' consumption-based emissions and develop the strategic procurement work. The preliminary study will also activate the business community in the work to reduce their consumption-based emissions.
e-MATS aims to promote next generation multimodal transport systems through electrification, connectivity and sharing. The initiative aims to facilitate the development of multimodal transport systems that link electric public transport and shared micro-mobility for sustainable, more efficient and equitable mobility services, improving urban mobility and...
The initiative will develop climate-smart mobility solutions that are included in housing in the new Vårvik district in Trollhättan, where 1800 new homes will be built by 2030.
The purpose of the initiative is to strengthen the conditions for municipal planning to develop and implement innovative ideas and transformative solutions that contribute to meeting the climate challenge and set environmental and sustainability goals.
In the initiative in Enköping, an IoT platform will make it possible to collect/share new data from buildings and the environment, thereby creating an improved basis for decision-making, scalable innovations and new services. To test dialogue effects and anchoring patterns among citizens, grouped qualitative digital surveys are conducted....
The initiative will develop methods and models for how public events can accelerate the climate transition in cities. The project brings together Sweden's largest live music festivals, Swedish sports and destinations for joint action with researchers. Since time immemorial, events have brought people together and aroused...
The initiative puts forward a new inter- and transdisciplinary approach to develop an emission-free, energy-independent and space-efficient mobility system based on car-sharing and drone-based logistics to meet the influx of newcomers in second-tier cities without the construction of new heavy mobility infrastructure,...
Lokal Kraft aims to drive climate change together with e.g. property owners, associations and citizens of Malmö, based on geographical parts of the city. The goal is to develop partnerships and working methods to maximize the climate effect of local development work, which will be based on...
The initiative is a demonstrator and includes initiatives for smart energy systems, circular resource flows and citizen engagement. By 2035, a socially sustainable and climate-positive district will be built with 4,500 homes and associated schools, preschools, care, services and trade. The initiative is based on ...
Air quality sensors are used to control indoor air and to inform the public about outdoor air. The initiative aims to improve the quality of measurement data for airborne particle sensors for improved service to vulnerable road users and more efficient ventilation....
Previous experience and studies show that it is not technical solutions that are missing for climate change, but transformative ability and capacity for new system solutions. The initiative is therefore based on what kind of movement we believe must take place, what working methods we believe will...
The City of Malmö aims to be a pioneer in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. To achieve Malmö's ambitious climate goals, the City of Malmö has initiated Klimatomställning Malmö. The Malmö initiative will continue to contribute to ensuring progress in implementation.
The initiative for a smart climate-neutral Umeå 2030 is based on a consumption perspective on the city's climate impact and includes emissions within and outside Umeå's geographical boundaries.
MERiT is about anchoring sustainable travel among employers. The initiative examined different companies' measures regarding sustainability and business travel through a test of a digital tool at the City of Gothenburg and a follow-up of a travel agency procurement at RISE.
Under the initiative, the City of Stockholm and partners will carry out pilot installations of innovative fruit and vegetable growing systems in the city's industrial areas. These growing systems are expected to provide positive environmental effects and potential for civic engagement as well as new job opportunities for new arrivals.
The Smart Village concept aims to build the neighborhood of the future with a high degree of energy self-sufficiency. The initiative aims to test the limits of how a modern neighborhood can be designed and provide opportunities for a near-zero emission lifestyle....
The DEKO feasibility study aims to mobilize and activate practices, target groups and beneficiaries in Malmö. It wants to lay the groundwork for interaction between (i) information, knowledge and expertise exchange and (ii) acknowledgement or feedback on how the exchange is interpreted and shapes actions....
