Climate neutral Lund 2030 started in September 2019 and at the end of August 2021 it was time for the last workshop of the first two-year period. If all goes the way, the project will proceed accordingly, in the first stage with another three years starting in October.

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Project Manager Thea Ohlander Arfwidsson — will Lund be climate-neutral by 2030?

Absolutely, I have to believe that! It is very important to have high goals to work towards. We set a goal in 2010 that the municipal organization would have zero fossil emissions by 2020. It was a very high target set in 2010, but we worked on mobility issues, among other things, and reached the target to 99%. It's pretty powerful, and it shows that it's important to set goals high.

Thea points out that a climate-neutral Lund 2030 does not mean that the total emissions in the municipality should be zero, but the intention is that the project should find ways to reduce emissions as much as possible. After that, the remaining emissions can be offset by carbon sinks.

“Climate neutrality is a good challenge that also demonstrates Lund's ambition,” continues Thea Ohlander Arfwidsson. The City Council has decided on the 2030 targets and Lund Municipality's environmental programme LundaEko in June this year, which sends a clear signal to all actors operating in Lund about what they want.

Climate-neutral Lund has used the service design methodology and gathered experts from “Kvadrupelhelix” — i.e. the public sector, industry, academia and citizens to see what challenges exist in Lund and then formulate the most concrete solutions possible.

“The solutions are usually not new, but it is important that we can discuss them together so that we can speed up the work. The joint approach has also created anchoring that can be useful all the way to the 2030 target.

Lund has an engaged population, but the point is not that all residents now have to learn everything about climate work.

“It should be easy to do the right thing. All citizens must not care about climate neutrality but residents should be able to make their daily choices and still be emissions-free. To achieve this, joint work is needed. No one has all the keys but one key to a solution is that everyone does a little bit of each.

In working with Climate Neutral Lund, the project team has chosen to focus on three areas: mobility, circular models and energy.

“We have chosen the three areas partly because they are important keys to achieving the goal and partly because they are a great challenge for Lund and for the whole world. These are also the areas where collaboration is most important.

Many issues related to mobility are political, some are governed by city building plans and other issues can be limited by laws. In all these areas, it takes time to change. In others, it is rather behavioral changes that are needed. One example is that the project looked at how to make it easier to live without your own car.

“Many people see that a car pool is cheaper than their own car, but you may be unsure how it works. Then we can look at how to simplify and create instruments of control. Another concept we examined is Byknots, which means making public transport even more attractive by having more things at stops, such as shops or lockers where you can pick up food and mail. We have also had a dialogue with Genarps residents to see what is attractive public transport for them and we have had competitions to engage young people to walk and cycle to leisure activities. Mobility is a difficult area to approach. It is not that we lack technological development, but the obstacles that exist are that sometimes it comes down to an area of responsibility that no one has and business models that do not exist.

In the area of the circular economy, Climate Neutral Lund has focused on, among other things, the reuse of materials in the construction industry, where a more circular economy could bring significant climate benefits. One idea is to start a recycling depot in Lund. The group has also seen that the municipality can make a big difference by imposing more requirements in terms of procurement but also by creating new rules for the market to reuse and trade second hand to a greater extent. Another track is to start a collaboration with LTH, which trains architects and industrial designers who generate a lot of products.

In the energy field, Climate-Neutral Lund has worked on the basis of the energy plan for the municipality that was adopted just over a year ago.

“We have looked at how we can increase energy production in Lund. An example is how we have worked with wind energy. In Lund there are extremely few places where it is possible to have wind power. We want to use the wind turbines that exist and upgrade them to bigger ones. We received a very good response at a workshop where those who have wind turbines in Lund municipality were brought together with actors who know how to upgrade the power plants. There we can get results only by having established contacts.

Climate-neutral Lund has also had three climate huts with young people. Lund has also been active in reporting laws that may hinder climate work to the Climate Justice Inquiry. There, Lund has submitted a legislative amendment to enable the municipality to share its vehicle pools with citizens and one to enable the creation of joint-owned photovoltaic installations on municipal roofs. That investigation should be completed by 2022.

What have you learned from being a project manager for Climate Neutral Lund?

“I have worked for a long time both nationally and internationally in the field of climate, so it was not primarily in this area that I have learned new things. However, law has taught me a lot about service design methods, about digital systems and how smooth it can be to have a workshop with 40 people even though you work from home. You change your mindset and realize that it is easy to include even the experts who are far away. I have also learned more about the internal processes that allow us to bring solutions out into the organization.

During the first phase of Climate Neutral Cities, nine Swedish cities have received funding and at the end of 2020 the cities signed a climate contracts in which Lund commits to becoming climate-neutral by 2030.

Climate Neutral Lund's work with Climate-Neutral Lund continued with Lund's application for Stage 2 being granted by the Strategic Innovation Programme Viable Cities.

The results from Climate Neutrala Lund 2030 can be viewed at their website.

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Climate-neutral Lund, stage 1

Financier: Viable Cities is the strategic innovation programme for smart and sustainable cities.

The programme supports nine Swedish cities' efforts to become climate neutral. In addition to Lund, Uppsala, Umeå, Barkabystaden, Stockholm, Gothenburg, Växjö, Malmö and Enköping participate. The work will last two years.

Project Time: 2019-september 2021

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