Danish sustainable urban development is more than just Copenhagen

For many years, the green and sustainable development in Denmark and the Nordics have been almost synonymous with Copenhagen, effectively and with good reason branded by the city and the country.

But the fact is that almost all municipalities in Denmark are working intensively with climate plans and actively preparing for a greener future when planning actions and collaboration with an increased number of relevant stakeholders, including citizens. 66% of Danish municipalities are working with smart city technology, and 92% of Danish municipalities expect to do more in the years ahead.

Go Green With Aarhus!

Aarhus is Denmark’s second-largest town and partner in the Access Cities project. The city has recently adopted their new Climate Strategy for 2030 and Climate Action Plan for 2021-2024, aiming for CO2-neutrality by 2030.

The awareness of concrete climate action is profound in the city as 9 out of 10 citizens support the enhanced efforts to act upon the challenges at hand. The businesses support such formulated measures and targets to increase collaboration and business opportunities, and cross-sector development. One of the city’s focus areas is improved administration and processing when it comes to securing a more seamless collaboration between the city and businesses engaged in implementing the different climate actions needed.

Especially within energy systems and water resource recovery, Aarhus is at the forefront worldwide and are welcoming more international partners and businesses to refine the existing solutions, but also to share knowledge and experiences when it comes to holistic planning of bigger energy and water systems as measures to reach the city’s climate goals.

For further information about Aarhus and collaboration possibilities, please visit the city’s Go Green Delegation Service or contact Senior Adviser Thomas Mikkelsen, mitho@aarhus.dk.

Copenhagen, however, do not rest on their laurels

The City of Copenhagen has lately – luckily! – felt an increased “pressure” and more opportunities for collaboration from many other cities in Denmark. This keeps Copenhagen sharp as to constantly defining and rethinking the city’s goals to keep developing the city into an area for liveability and climate-positive endeavours. Recent consideration and planned actions for reaching its carbon neutrality goals in 2025 are activities within carbon capture, circular economy, and zero-emission construction sites. Especially zero emission construction sites with international collaboration with, e.g., Stockholm, Oslo, Helsinki and C40 is an area of great interest and great potential for improvement, both when it comes to the site itself with machines and (inner-city) lorry transportation, but also the building materials as such.

The city is almost done with their latest ambitious update on their carbon neutrality roadmap and included an improved and bold section about mobility. Again, this calls for international collaboration. The city is always open for visits and business-oriented collaboration, leading to the co-creation of sustainable solutions to be developed, implemented, and scaled worldwide.

For more information about collaboration opportunities in Copenhagen, please contact Lykke Leonardsen, Program Director, Resilient and Sustainable City Solutions, Technical and Environmental Administration, City of Copenhagen, lykleo@kk.dk.