Sweden’s Beloved City initiates collaboration that slashes emissions

Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Population: 1,611,776 (urban population)

Climate: Humid continental

Duration: 2013 – currently

Sector: Transport

Funding sources: Private

City networks: C40

Savings: A 74% decrease in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions has been estimated due to the project.

Solutions: inter-business collaborations to reduce the pressing sustainability freight issues.

Multiple benefits: Economic, social health, and environmental co-benefits.

Stockholm decided to tackle the notoriously challenging heavy motor vehicle-related carbon emissions as part of its ambition to be fossil fuel-free by 2040.

Objective – To assist in resolving urgent sustainability freight concerns through a long-term set of relationships between various private sector actors.

Solutions – To reduce Stockholm’s city centre congestion, city council officials launched the ‘lskade stad’ collaboration five years ago (from 2019) and have since helped establish a successful and long-lasting set of relationships between different private sector actors (Beloved City). Bring (logistics operator), Vasakronan (property owner), and Ragn-Sells (recycling company) have collaborated on this city project to help tackle the pressing sustainability freight concerns arising from first-mile waste collection and last-mile parcel delivery. Six regular diesel-powered vehicles have been replaced with one silent electric vehicle due to this combination of business operations.

Such has been the project’s success that the area covered in Stockholm has been ever increasing.

Funding – The city has only paid the wages of 1-2 full-time civil servant coordinators up to 2019. The businesses have made all other investments, and the enterprises have been commercially viable from the project’s inception.

Innovation – Greater energy efficiency and lower production cost techniques were developed due to these inter-business collaborations, streamlining their business processes to become more economically and environmentally sustainable and more competitive for the post-carbon future. This reduction in the number of vehicles and travels has lowered air and noise pollution in the city and reduced transportation-related CO2 emissions.

Success factors – 1)Trust has been crucial in this process because many logistics operators would be reluctant to allow another company to deliver parcels to their clients, which is why Bring’s collaboration with Ragn-Sells is outstanding. 2) The city council can play an essential role in facilitation. The city was instrumental in facilitating processes and fostering effective economic collaborations.

Significant outcomes

• More attractive public places will likely result in higher foot traffic, implying more commercial activity on the high street.
• This effort resulted in a 74% reduction in CO2 emissions. Furthermore, the energy consumed by this waste collection is only one-third that of conventional waste collection.

Synergies with local policies:

• Strategy for a fossil-fuel free Stockholm by 2040. By 2040, Stockholm will be free of fossil fuels. By 2020, the City Council has set a target of no more than 2.3 tonnes of CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalents) per household. One of the key aims is eco-efficient transportation; in this regard, the milestone target of emissions of no more than 2.3 tonnes of CO2e by 2020 requires a 228,000-tonne reduction in energy use in the transportation sector.

Political alignment:

• Action Plan for a fossil-fuel independent vehicle fleet. Following on from Sweden’s Integrated Climate and Energy Policy Bills, this action plan outlines the particular steps needed to realize the goal of a fossil-fuel-free vehicle fleet by 2030. Given that road-based transportation accounts for one-third of emissions, the fossil-fuel-free vehicle fleet is an essential contributor to Sweden’s greenhouse gases (GHG) emission reduction target;
• Sweden’s Integrated National Energy and Climate Plan. The National Energy and Climate Plan (ENCP) is a ten-year integrated document prescribed by the European Union to each member country for the EU to reach its overall GHG emission targets. Among its other goals is to cut emissions in the transportation sector by 70% by 2030 (the base year 2010).

Marketability: This solution is eminently scalable to other cities, which is why Stockholm has been actively disseminating Beloved City. Other cities have taken notice of the city’s successful scaling-up. Oslo launched its version of this project in April 2019, with Malmo, Sweden’s third-largest city, set to launch its scheme later in 2019.