Sustainable municipalities in Sweden

Swedish municipalities bring their work on energy and the environment one step further in co-operation with the Swedish Energy Agency.

The Swedish Energy Agency is responsible for implementing the national energy policy in Sweden. One objective of this policy is to build a sustainable and effective energy system. The Sustainable Municipality Programme is one of the efforts in order to achieve this objective. The program combines the strengths of the central administration with the strengths of the local municipality. The municipalities decide upon their own priorities, individually drawing up their local objectives and action plans. The Agency supports the municipalities in the planning and implementation work.

Participating municipalities

From five participating municipalities in 2003 to 2007, the programme has expanded to 66 municipalities, more than 20 percent of the total, 290 municipalities. The results and experiences are going to be disseminated to all the municipalities of Sweden.

Organisation

The participating municipalities each belong to one cluster with their own coordinator. The clusters are platforms for supporting the coordination and management of the local work. The clusters are regionally organized, except for one cluster, which instead consists of the 12 largest municipalities, having 80 000 – 180 000 inhabitants.

Thematic areas

Every municipality also participates in a number of thematic areas, in accordance with its own priorities. Similarly to the clusters, each thematic area has its own coordinator with the task to provide a network which can exchange knowledge, arrange common activities etc. so as to raise the participators’ level of competence.

There are presently activities in thematic areas for energy efficiency in buildings, biogas production, secure supply of domestic heating, procurement of energy-consuming equipment, business development strategy development and long-term planning. Further thematic areas are planned, e.g. transport, wind power, energy awareness among school children etc.

A strong role in society

In Sweden, the local authorities have traditionally been given a strong role in society. Each municipality has a politically elected administration. Each of the 290 municipalities conducts its own affairs, including levying taxes and taking care of many day-to-day aspects of life, including aspects related to energy, environment and transport. Since 1977 the local authorities are legally obliged to promote the efficient use of energy in their planning.

Agenda 21

During recent years all the municipalities of Sweden have become involved in the work with Agenda 21. Within Agenda 21 the focus is mainly on environmental questions, however, social questions have also become more important. The Sustainable Municipality programme takes advantage of the municipalities’ long experience of working with issues to do with energy and the environment.

Source Swedish Energy Agency