“If we don't show the way, who will?”
It was in 2019 that Lund was named as one of the Swedish cities that will work to become climate neutral within the Strategic Innovation Programme Viable Cities. Since then, Lund has gained continued confidence through Stage 2 of the same project. In addition, Lund is one of seven Swedish cities among the 112 mission cities in the EU Net Zero Cities. This is the backbone of the work to create a climate-neutral municipality, but the work also includes a number of other projects, such as CoAction Lund there Lund Municipality brings together 25 actors from organisations, academia and business.
Lund has also been praised for her work in sustainability, including placing the magazine Current Sustainability Lund as number one in 2023 in its annual survey of municipalities and the WWF named Lund as one of two winners (the other being Colombia's capital Bogotà) when judging the world's most climate-ambitious cities 2022.
Why is Lund such a successful city in the area? Future by Lund met Juliet Leonette, project manager for Climate Neutral Lund 2030 to get clarity.
- An important reason is the long-term work with, for example, district heating, which allows us in Lund to have clean energy. Through the work on low-temperature district heating at Brunnshög with residual heat from the research facilities MAX IV and ESS, we have also received international attention. Within the CoAction Lund project, there will also be a test of something that can be a gamechanger, which is how to internettify the entire energy system.
- Within the municipality there are important corner pillars such as Lundaeko (Lund Municipality's Programme for Ecological Sustainable Development 2021 - 2030) and LundaMats (strategy for a sustainable transport system in Lund) with clear objectives. It's important that we've had structures in place early on and then worked on them further. Other important elements are the electrification of buses and our cooperation with the university, the business community and the innovation arena.
How important is cooperation to achieve climate neutrality?
- It's incredibly important! We identified during the early stages of the work with Climate Neutral Lund 2030 that much of the work will be done in the gap between organisations. It is about new ways of working together, new ways of working, new ways of organising and new ways of financing work. For example, we have identified sources of emissions but how we can tackle them is about how we work together and how we attack the problem. Extensive cooperation can be found in the nearby project CoAction Lund with 25 active actors but also through venues such as Climate Alliance and Future by Lund.
What areas do you see as particularly important to work with?
- We have worked very well in the energy field, but if we combine energy with mobility and transport, which account for much of our emissions, it is a big challenge. If we are going to electrify, the energy issue will be high on the agenda. In the area of transport, we need to reduce emissions, but also reduce the number of vehicle transport by increasing public transport, as well as pedestrian and bicycle traffic. When it comes to the circular economy, we all need to see that things are resources that should not be thrown away. One way of working on this for us is to facilitate various initiatives, such as The Circle Centre, which, among other things, rents things out, but also organizes workshops and events in sustainability Agriculture is also an important part that we have not addressed so far, and we need to look at emissions from machinery and how the soil is used as a potential to increase biodiversity. We are reviewing the possibility of going into this in Phase 3, also in relation to carbon sinks and carbon sequestration. In phase 3, it will be more about large processes than about point efforts. We will also build the conversion team, initially internally, but in the long term we need a transformation arena that covers the whole of Lund.
What is most important when creating climate-neutral societies - behaviour change or legislation?
- It's a combination. Behavioral changes are very important. Many climate psychologists say that we don't live and act the way we think. The reasons may be, for example, convenience or economy. It should be easy at the individual level to choose the right one, and then a change needs to take place at the structural level. One thing we can do to change behaviors is to work focused in neighborhoods and see what is needed — it can be community halls, clothing change days, and other things that that particular neighborhood needs.
Will Lund be climate-neutral by 2030?
- That, of course, is the goal, we have conditions and a policy that says we will do it. Something I appreciate is that the chairman of the municipal board Anders Almgren says that sometimes it is not enough to be the best, but we still have a lot to do. That's the way it really is. We who have everything in place also have an obligation and if we do not show the way - who will do it?
The municipality of Lund also works with climate neutrality in other projects, all of which are part of the Klimatneutrala Lund portfolio. There are, for example, CoPilot, CoAction Lund, a feasibility study on climate investment and a dozen other projects related to the area.
CoPilot is a project that makes a whole of Lund Municipality's climate work. This creates an overview of the portfolio, i.e. what projects, actions and activities are being undertaken, what they actually result in and — not least importantly — where the gaps are.
- We need to see who is available, how we distribute the work and what collaborations are needed. It may be someone other than the municipality who will pursue certain issues. It is also important to identify new financing models, concludes Juliet Leonette.
Pictured: Juliet Leonette on one of the City Hall balconies, which has a net to prevent birds building nests on the balcony.
Financing: The Climate Neutral Lund 2030 project receives support from the strategic innovation programme Viable Cities funded by Vinnova, the Swedish Energy Agency and Formas.
Footnote: The climate neutrality that Lund hopes to achieve by 2030 concerns the geographical area of Lund. This interpretation of climate neutrality does not include consumption-based emissions, which are the hidden emissions that every citizen contributes to through consumption.
