Lahti appointed European Green Capital!
The title of European Green Capital is the European Commission's recognition of a city that is a pioneer in environmental activities, serves as an example to other cities and develops innovative solutions to environmental challenges. Winning the title means that in 2021, a number of international and local environmental events will take place in Lahti.
Lahti was one of the three finalists in the European Green Capital competition for 2021. Originally the competition involved nine cities across Europe.
The final cities were evaluated on the basis of the application’s twelve indicators depicting the state of their environment, progress on environmental issues, and future plans. Lahti scored the best in four areas: air quality, waste, governance, and green growth and eco-innovation.
Lahti offers environmental solutions to other cities
Lahti’s strength in the competition was its ability to produce applicable environmental solutions for other cities and for various conditions. Lahti’s innovations in circular economy, good examples in water conservation, and its communal zoning scheme are solutions that can be easily used elsewhere.
Lahti will become carbon neutral already in 2025 as the first major city in Finland. Lahti made a major energy transformation and stopped using coal at the beginning of April. Lahti is spending approximately EUR 180 million on an environmentally friendly bioenergy plant.
CitiCAP strongly involved in the making of the green capital
Thanks to our CitiCAP-project, Lahti will be the first city in the world to launch a personal carbon trading pilot on mobility in autumn 2019. The sustainable urban mobility plan (SUMP) will strengthen the strategic, long term mobility planning of the city and the smart bicycle highway will serve as an example of good bicycle infrastructure.
Urban mobility
