Articles and blog posts on urban development

Housing companies, architects, and sustainability teams are under pressure to cut emissions, use space efficiently, and support social sustainability. Shared housing models like co-living and co-housing can help resolve these challenges and recent actions by the Swedish government may make the development of shared housing much easier.

Climate transition requires more than visions – it requires action. Across Sweden, several municipalities and cities are leading the way with concrete measures that reduce emissions, strengthen resilience and create sustainable communities. The transition needs to happen on a large scale and at a rapid pace. But how should the transition be financed and how should we solve the major challenge of increased consumption?

One link, one click, and the systems go down. Attacks on the public sector are increasing rapidly, yet many Swedish municipalities still lack the ability to protect themselves. Meanwhile, the NIS2 Directive is being implemented, introducing new requirements for preparedness and accountability.

Adapting our cities to be better prepared for the future is perhaps one of the most challenging tasks we face. No one knows for sure how the future will unfold. It requires innovation from everyone involved, especially in cities and municipalities. But how should one proceed and where should one start? An innovation partnership with RISE is a good start to succeed in the urban societal transition.

Sweden's largest initiative for sustainable cities, Climate Neutral Cities 2030, is stepping up. 48 of Sweden's 290 municipalities are coming together to tackle the climate crisis. In just five years, the original nine cities in the initiative have now become 48. According to Lars Johansson, change leader and transition strategist at RISE and part of the Viable Cities program office, the ambition is for all Swedish municipalities to become climate neutral, and it is not an impossibility. The initiative is driven by Viable Cities, which is one of Sweden's national strategic innovation programs.

Around 70 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions come from our cities. At the same time, 85 percent of Europe's population is expected to live in cities by 2050, and 93 percent in Sweden. These figures make it clear why drastically reducing emissions is a must. In Malmö, system innovation is being used to meet the challenge.

Can a city grow while reducing energy consumption and emissions? Örebro Municipality challenged existing legislation and launched a pioneering project to make it work. The Tamarinden neighbourhood is now attracting interest from property companies and government officials alike.

Climate change places new demands on municipal urban runoff management. Uppsala’s newly established Rosendal district has been home to the testing of innovative full-scale blue/green/grey solutions – solutions that can handle torrential rain, purify water and improve the urban vegetation environment. “This way, even heavy rain is a resource,” explains Johan Eriksson, an environmental strategist at Uppsala Municipality.

Allowing tenants to hire the property company’s vehicles, which are otherwise not being used, seems like an obvious solution in a time when we need to make significantly better use of our resources. Current regulations, however, impose too high a threshold to even attempt such a solution. In a research project, RISE now wants to test how this car sharing model could work, along with what relaxed regulations could entail. “The current legislation is very outdated,” says Thomas Axelsson from Ezeride, one of the participating companies in the project. “Sweden is basically the only country in Europe that still has a regulated car rental market.”