EU Commissioner Meets Climate-Neutral Cities in Lund
When Future by Lund, Lund University and Lund Municipality participated in Smart City Expo World Congress In Barcelona, a contact was established with Patrick Child, Deputy Director General for Environment of the European Commission. The contracts were created under the Lund Company Cleantech Scandinavia annual event Smart City Business forum. Patrick Child leads the EU's policy work in areas such as sustainable investment strategies and came to Lund to meet representatives from Lund, Malmö and Helsingborg, all three of which are among the EU's hundred selected climate-neutral cities.
- I'm here in Lund today as part of an outreach, Patrick Child told me. I am the mission manager for the mission with Europe's 100 climate-neutral cities, and we are working with the different cities in the EU to support their goal of becoming climate neutral by 2030. This morning we had a really good discussion with representatives of Lund, Malmö and Helsingborg. All cities are part of this mission and we talked, for example, about how to make energy savings in homes and buildings, how to recover heat from industrial processes and what cities can do at the local level to contribute to climate goals.
What are the biggest challenges to solve for climate-neutral cities?
- I believe that the three main challenges are, firstly, energy efficiency, secondly, mobility and transport, and thirdly, heating and cooling of buildings.
In the morning, Patrick Child had time to meet representatives of the three cities but also various organizations that talked about the work on climate neutrality.
What do you think has been most interesting about your visit to Lund?
- The most striking thing for me is how the city is mobilized around the agenda of climate neutrality, and thus not only the city as an authority. Working with citizens and businesses, the agency is exploring different governance models to achieve the highly ambitious climate neutrality agenda.
During the afternoon, it was part of the plans that Patrick Child and the other participants would visit sustainability initiatives in Lund, which the electric road on the Getingvägen, a work with energy optimization of apartments on Linero, the expansion of Brunnshög and Power Ring Ortoftaverk.
What are you looking forward to seeing in Lund?
- The electric road is something that excites me a lot and it will be really interesting to see. I think it has a lot of potential to be scaled up in other areas.
Finally, Patrick Child wanted to talk about the Swedish work on climate neutrality.
- The model that we are developing for climate-neutral cities for a European level is very much inspired by the national programme in Sweden under the Viable cities initiative. Lund and the other cities are part of the national network, which puts them in a strong position to contribute to our programme at European level.
Viable cities is one of the strategic innovation programmes implemented with the support of Vinnova.
The event was implemented by Lund Municipality and Future by Lund to reinforce Lund Municipality's work on climate neutrality. Lund Municipal Board Chairman Anders Almgren was one of the participants.
- Patrick Child's visit to Lund is a recognition that we in Lund are good at climate work, and it commits that we, along with many other leading cities, succeed in delivering,” says Anders Almgren. In addition, the fact that three of the hundred selected cities in the EU are as close to each other as Malmö, Lund and Helsingborg does is unique and creates the conditions for our three cities to cooperate.
Jon Andersson, head of the sustainability unit in Lund Municipality, told us more about how the visit strengthens Lund's work on climate neutrality.
- The visit was important for us for the further work on climate-neutral cities to give a picture of the conditions in Sweden and Skåne and for companies and municipalities to have the opportunity to present themselves, says Jon Andersson. During the visit, we were able to give concrete examples of climate work in practice — everything from Kraftringen's district heating solutions and energy renovations at Linero to innovations such as the electric road at Getingvägen.
Read about how Lund is working to become climate neutral by 2030.
Pictured: The picture shows representatives from Lund Municipality, Malmö City, Helsingborg City, Future by Lund, Lund University, Kraftringen and LFM30 together with the EU's Patrick Child and Rasa Catillon. Photo: Lars Johansson, Viable cities.