Swedes do it greener

If you want to see the best that Europe has to offer in sustainable urban living, head for Stockholm. The European Union has just chosen the Swedish capital to be its exemplar city for 2010, and first holder of the title of European Green Capital. The title – and the torch it represents – will then be taken on by Hamburg, Germany’s second largest city, during 2011.

Both make good role models, said EU Energy Commissioner Stavros Dimos at the award ceremony, “with their measures to tackle air pollution, traffic and congestion levels, greenhouse gas emissions, and waste and waste water management”.

They have also shown some ambitious targets for improvement. Stockholm has set a goal of becoming fossil fuel-free by 2050, and has already cut its CO2 emissions per person by 25% since 1990. Hamburg’s progress on this is somewhat slower (emissions down by 15% so far) but it has plans to ratchet up the reductions to 80% by 2050.

Quality of life and access are crucial criteria. In Stockholm, the great majority of residents (90-95%) are only a short walk (no more than 300 metres) from green space and from decent public transport links. These are things that people clearly value, encouraging the city to include plans for more bathing beaches, for instance, in its priorities. It all helps make certain restrictions more palatable, too. Congestion charging has helped cut car use, and there has been a big push on renewable fuels, accompanied by a switch to low-carbon vehicles across the public transport fleet.

The title of European Green Capital is likely to bring material advantages too, encouraging tourism and investment and attracting young professionals who’ll want to live and work there. For other cities it’s a pointer to sources of inspiration – and, for the likes of Bristol, the only UK city to make the shortlist this time, something to aspire to in future years.

Paul Rainger, Head of the Sustainable Bristol City-Region Project at Forum for the Future, says “it’s good from our point of view” to subject the UK’s best performer [Bristol came top of Forum’s Sustainable Cities Index] to Europe-wide benchmarking, and thereby to show “that there’s a lot more that can be done” to drive sustainability forward in the Bristol city-region. It was “quite high-risk”, he says, for Bristol even to make a bid this time round, with a candidacy that was stronger “on what they wanted to do than on what they are actually doing”.

But planning for a fresh bid in the future, he says, based on what can be achieved in the interim and what can be learned from other cities, would be “a good way of underlining the city-region’s commitment to sustainability and maintaining the momentum to deliver on its ambitions”. – Roger East

1 May 2009

Roger East