In Finland, the municipalities of Vantaa, Kerava and Järvenpää along with several companies has developed a climate cooperation with the aim of reducing regional carbon dioxide emissions.
The project was financed by the Finnish Ministry of the Environment, while the City of Vantaa was the main coordinator, and the nearby municipalities of Kerava and Järvenpää were the cooperative partners. This project represents an illustrative case on how the economic and environmental dimension of the smart city concept have been supported in the area of the Helsinki capital region.
The aim of the climate cooperation was to reduce regional carbon dioxide emissions through the cooperation between municipalities and companies. Achieving this goal required that in addition to the involvement of the municipalities, other actors in the region, such as companies, also had to be active and enthusiastic about goal-oriented climate work.
In the intitial phase of the year-long project, which ran from May 2021 to June 2022, a toolkit of operating models was developed to collect the tools used by the municipalities to implement and carry out climate cooperations with the companies of the region. Such tools promotes the municipalities' climate actions at the national level, since the operating models have been brought together and can now also be applied in other places.
Local climate cooperation models
Another main goal was to create a local climate cooperation model in the municipalities involved in the project. For this reason, it was outlined what kind of business cooperation exist in the municipalities of Vantaa, Kerava, and Järvenpää, and how climate issues appear in such cooperation. Futhermore, an important dimension was to find out the point of view of the companies in the area. For example, what kind of wishes do the companies have towards the municipality and how the municipality could support the climate work of the companies.
After the initial phases of the project, and surveying the current situation and clarifying the business perspectives of the project, a climate cooperation model was piloted with the purpose to promote the cities' climate goals and improve the conditions for the climate work of companies operating in the region.
At the end of the project, the final climate cooperation model was selected based on the characteristics of the municipality and the available resources. To ensure the continuation of the climate cooperation after the end of the project, a plan has been drawn around the selected operating model highlighting how it can be maintained for the municipalities and companies in the future.
Read more about the climate cooperation project here (only availabe in Finnish).