From rust-belt to eco-city

In the fifth and final article in his 'International Insights' series, Robin Hambleton examines the bold steps taken by Malmö, Sweden, to respond to the challenges of climate change.

In the early 1990s the bottom dropped out of the Malmö economy. The port city, located just across the water from Copenhagen, had grown to become the third largest city in Sweden. In the 1960s this successful industrial town had enormous shipyards that could rival any in the world. Now the docks and associated traditional industries have vanished.

While Malmö’s fall from economic grace mirrors the decline of many UK industrial cities, it was probably more dramatic and more sudden than many. In the three-year period from 1992 to 1994 the city lost a third of its jobs.

Anders Rubin, Deputy Mayor for Housing and Urban Environment, who has been an elected councillor since 1985 and knows Malmö’s industrial past very well, put it graphically: “In three years we lost everything. We went from industrial town to ‘no industry’ town.”

The Malmö turnaround

A decade or so later, Malmö is lauded as one of the most farsighted cities in Europe for sustainable development. In an astonishing turnaround the city has reinvented itself as an eco-friendly, multicultural city.

Malmö has an array of imaginative environmental initiatives delivering new ways of responding to climate change. It is pioneering approaches and practices that will be of real interest to UK local authorities. 

A couple of examples can illustrate the point. First, we can highlight the acclaimed new development in Western Harbour. This rapidly expanding new neighbourhood is home to some of the most sophisticated architecture and urban design in Europe. In line with demanding eco targets set down by the political leadership, it is served entirely by renewable energy from sun, wind, water, refuse and sewage. 

Second, to the south of the city, is the equally impressive Augustenborg neighbourhood. Here an existing area with a population of around 3,000 has been upgraded in an inventive way. The neighbourhood now has redesigned public spaces, upgraded homes and Scandinavia’s largest green roof system. Last month the Green Roof Building Centre, located in the heart of the neighbourhood, hosted a national conference on alternative ways of using solar panels in different urban settings.

In this article I will examine the bold steps Malmö City Council has taken to respond to climate change and I will attempt to draw out lessons for UK practice. However, it is important to note that the city council has, during the last 10 years, also welcomed an enormous influx of new immigrants. Of the total population of 267,000, some 32 per cent have a foreign background – that is, they have at least one foreign-born parent.  Involving newcomers in decision making is a key theme in the politics of the city.

Climate change initiatives in context

While the concern about ‘climate change’ may appear to be a comparatively new phenomenon, local authorities in many countries have been attempting to promote sustainable development for more than 20 years.

As Steve Waller, Sustainability Adviser at the IDeA, puts it: “If climate change is the problem, sustainable development is the answer”. Framed in this way, we can see that earlier thinking and innovation relating to sustainable development and, for example, Local Agenda 21 initiatives, should be drawn on to inform modern policy and practice.

The influential Brundtland Report of 1987, 'Our Common Future' – World Commission on Environment and Development – defined sustainable development in the following way:

“Humanity has the ability to make development sustainable – to ensure that it meets the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

From the outset, then, sustainable development has embraced social as well as ecological considerations. This is well illustrated by the work of the United Nations (UN), particularly in the period since the major Summit on Human Settlements (Habitat II) held in Istanbul, Turkey in 1996.

At this summit, which built on the Agenda 21 approach broached at the first UN urban summit held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, 171 countries adopted the Habitat Agenda. This is a global plan of action that focuses on two themes: ensuring adequate shelter for all and managing sustainable human settlements in a rapidly urbanising world.

The UN Habitat Agency has now acquired a strengthened role within the UN system. Plans are well advanced for a fourth major urban summit – now renamed the World Urban Forum to signal a broader and more inclusive approach. This will be held in Nanjing, China, in November 2008.

European climate change policy

Concern about climate change, which includes but is not limited to global warming, has given renewed impetus to approaches designed to bring about sustainable development. The European Commission Green Paper, ‘Adapting to climate change in Europe’ (June 2007), sets out the reasons for global concern and maps out the options for EU action.

It points out that global average temperatures have increased by 0.76 degrees centigrade since 1850 and argues that, without an effective global climate change mitigation policy, we can anticipate a further temperature increase of between 1.8 and 4 degrees centigrade by 2100 – when compared with 1990 levels. This is three to six times the temperature increase the globe has experienced since pre-industrial times. Europe will not be spared – indeed, the evidence suggests that Europe has been warming faster than the rest of the world.

In the light of this analysis the Green Paper maps out the two broad strategies that societies need to pursue:

1. mitigation – involving significant efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
2. adaptation – involving taking steps to cope with a changing climate.

In their response to climate change challenges, local authorities across Europe are rightly pursuing both these strategies.

The policies of the UK central government, consistent with the EU approach, recognise that councils are at the heart of innovation in this field.  As the 2006 Local Government White Paper, ‘Strong and Prosperous Communities’ puts it: "Local government has a pivotal role in achieving sustainable development and mitigating and adapting to climate change".

A number of local government-led alliances and initiatives have been established to respond to climate change, and UK local government is very active in this field. For example, in 2000 the ‘Nottingham Declaration’ on climate change sparked new efforts. Signatories, and there are now more than 200 of them, agree to develop climate change action plans – to tackle climate change and to work with others to reduce emissions. Members of Climate Alliance, a European network of local authorities, have committed themselves voluntarily to reduce CO2 emissions by 10 per cent every five years.

Local authorities should be praised for leading a growing number of initiatives to tackle climate change. But it is also important to record that community-based action is also proliferating. The Transition Towns initiative, which seeks to engage whole communities in finding practical alternatives to current fossil fuel-led lifestyles by creating and implementing ‘energy descent action plans’, is a good example.

The Malmö approach

There are many dimensions to the Malmö approach to climate change. Here I identify four main lessons for other cities.

1. Bold political leadership

In 1994, the newly-elected political leaders of the city were faced with a formidable challenge. In effect, the long-established economic structure of the city had collapsed. Traumatic as it was, the crisis was to spur fresh thinking.

Anders Rubin again:

“The disappearance of traditional industries was so fast and so complete that we had nothing to be defensive about. We simply had to come up with a new approach. And we decided that the way forward was to create a modern city that was at the very top when it comes to environmental issues”.

The political leadership exercised by Ilmar Reepalu, Leader of the City, and his colleagues was not just bold and forward looking. As well as being strategic and anticipatory, it was backed by innovative approaches to management and the introduction of an entirely new organisational design for city services. More of this in a moment but first consider the boldness of the vision.

As Reepalu put it:

“Our city used to be viewed as a declining, former industrial town on the periphery of Sweden. Now we have positioned ourselves as a modern city at the centre of the Oresund region knowledge economy."

The construction of the magnificent Oresund Bridge linking Malmö and Copenhagen was, of course, a major strategic decision made at national level by the central governments of Sweden and Denmark. But local politicians pressed for it. Opened in 2000, the bridge – with its international rail and road links – is contributing to a reshaping of the socio-economic geography of the whole Oresund region.

Within this new regional context the political leadership has orchestrated the preparation and adoption of the Comprehensive Plan for Malmö 2000. This sophisticated urban plan provides for mixed uses within the city. As Christer Larsson, the Director of City Planning put it:

“The structure of the city is crucial to our approach to climate change. Through careful planning designed to ensure mixed-use developments close to railway stations we can reduce the need for car travel enormously."

2. Decentralised management of city services

In 1996, Malmö City was divided into 10 geographical areas, each run by a City District Department. In common with similar efforts to introduce decentralised management in many UK local authorities in the 1990s, the aim is twofold: to develop and strengthen local democracy and to improve public service responsiveness.

This decentralised approach is relevant to current UK discussions of community empowerment as it reminds us that organisational redesign is critical. Adding empowerment mechanisms onto the edge of unreformed organisational structures is a recipe for failure.

In Malmö the decentralised system enables city government to gain a comprehensive view of the needs of the population in a given district and gives citizens enhanced influence over conditions in their area.  The four main areas covered by the City District Departments are:

1. pre-school and compulsory school
2. health and medical care
3. individual and family care
4. leisure and culture.

This model delivers a double advantage. Devolution of decisions to the ‘district’ makes those decisions more responsive to local concerns. At the same time it frees the political leaders to concentrate on strategic concerns. Rubin put it this way:

“I am not interested in driving the car of city administration. Other people should drive the car. My job is to work with my colleagues on creating the map so that we can ensure that the car goes the right way”.

3. Give officers space to innovate

Politicians in Malmö trust their officers to get on with the job. This is visible not just in the organisational design just referred to, but also in relation to a whole range of projects and initiatives.

Take the Western Harbour development I mentioned at the beginning. This is a stunning development where urban designers, architects, environmentalists, structural engineers and city planners have been let loose. Even without mentioning the astonishing ‘Turning Torso’ tower – a 54-storey mixed-use skyscraper designed by Santiago Calatrava – the Western Harbour represents a breakthrough in sophisticated environmental design tuned to an urban context.

Here, people on foot and cyclists have priority over cars, walls and roofs are covered with plants, and green roofs of moss-stonecrop sedum carpet are found on almost all properties. The extensive hydrological features manage rain runoff and support a broad range of birds as well as creating a ‘city in a garden’ feel. And the whole neighbourhood is carbon neutral, mainly because the district heating system stores heat down in the limestone beneath the neighbourhood in the summer and draws on it in the winter.

Design innovation on this scale requires not just imagination and technical know-how. It also requires the creation of a culture where innovation is prized. It is hardly surprising that jobs in Malmö city government are now sought after in a way that was not the case twenty years ago.

4. Empower local communities

This devolution to districts is complemented by local community empowerment approaches at neighbourhood level. Ekostaden Augustenborg – the Augustenborg Eco Neighbourhood – provides a splendid example.

Built in 1948 to 1952, Augustenborg was one of the first of the post-war Swedish housing estates. As Trevor Graham, project leader of the recent transformation of the neighbourhood, explains:

“The new spacious homes with modern facilities and a high quality living environment were the foundation of the new Sweden, and Augustenborg became a leading symbol."

As with many council estates in the UK, the area was a great success for the best part of 20 years.  However, in the late 1960s and early 1970s things started to change. By then the housing units appeared small when compared with more modern developments and the area was subject to regular flooding – putting the laundrettes in the basements out of action and creating inconvenience and cost. Migration from Augustenborg left empty apartments and the area took on an abandoned feel.

In 1998, as part of the new political strategy outlined earlier, the Ekostaden Augustenborg project was launched with the aim of transforming the area into a sustainable neighbourhood. Local residents have been encouraged to take a leading role in idea development, design and implementation. One example – Morten Ovesen, a local resident, craftsman and water innovator, helped to design a new open storm water system, one that now retains 70 per cent of all rainwater.

Lessons for the UK

The strategy Malmö has pursued in the last 10 years or so provides an example of local government at its best. The city still has many challenges to confront. Connecting the eastern part of the city to the central area, for example, is a high priority for the City Planning Department. But few cities have been so effective in taking practical steps to tackle climate change.

Bibliography and other relevant sources

Read about the sources drawn on for this article and discover other useful resources relating to sustainable urban development and ways of responding to climate change.

View the bibliography

About the author

Robin Hambleton is Professor of City Leadership in the Faculty of Environment and Technology at the University of the West of England, Bristol. He is also Director of Urban Answers, an urban consultancy based in Bristol.

Find out more about Robin Hambleton