Malmö, Sweden

Determined to ward off any challengers to its self-proclaimed moniker, “The Sustainable City” (den hållbara staden), Malmö has widely publicized that 2020 is the year that it will become “climate neutral” by relying on renewable energy for 50 percent of its energy usage. The extent to which the gem of Sweden's southern region is committed to attaining these ambitious goals is manifested in its master plan and by two official publications of the municipality; namely, Energy Strategy for Malmö 2008 and Environmental Program for Malmö 2009–2020. Although its population of 290,000 makes it Sweden's third city in terms of population, Malmö is not content to take a back seat to either Stockholm or Gothenburg on the world stage. Indeed, it has boldly proclaimed its “acceptance of the challenge to become the world's best at sustainable city development.” Therefore, it is no surprise that the holding of the 15th Conference of Parties to the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP-15) in Copenhagen was viewed as a propitious occasion to showcase Malmö's most creative and groundbreaking projects in sustainable urban development.

With Copenhagen just a 30-minute jaunt across the sound (Öresund), it was natural for Malmö to want to entice the 15,000 delegates attending COP-15 to take a short ferry ride to Sweden's southernmost metropolis for the purpose of becoming acquainted with a municipality that is “in the forefront of taking an ecological approach to planning, building, and construction in the urban environment.” Hence, the Environment Department created “Climate Study Tours in Malmö” to coincide with the two-week period in December 2009 that COP-15 convened. Because the purpose of the tours was to showcase the projects that Malmö considered to be its most stellar achievements in terms of “mitigation and adaptation” and “increasing sustainability” in the urban setting, it is worthwhile to examine the four tours that were offered.