Here are my takeaways from the fantastic three-week research trip:
When it comes to sustainability, Sweden really has it all together. That's not just lip service either- what many in the US would consider ambitious plans are already built, operating, and occupied by satisfied citizens in Sweden.
Sweden is very, very interested in learning how to export this know-how. Fast.
Sustainability doesn't always have to mean expensive pet projects. Using sustainable practices can build wealth.
In their cities, ministries, companies, and research programs, the real advantage the Swedes have is in designing holistic solutions. That means that you don't have to wait for the latest-generation solar panels or plug-in hybrid to begin crafting a sustainable city or region- you can start now with proven technology.
At the national level, you have ministries that wish to "Stimulate, not regulate" Sweden's way to effective sustainability (quoted from Pernilla Knutsson.) With a strong national agenda led by global thought-leaders like Dr. Karl-Henrik Robèrt, the conversation meaningfully moves from not whether to invest in sustainability-enhancing technology but how. Municipalities, counties, and the national government all move from a basic understanding of the power of energy efficiency and environmentally-friendly solutions, and this consensus is immensely powerful. The consensus, more than anything, is the foundation of Sweden's ability to decouple their carbon growth from their economic growth and really provide a global case study of the possible.
This has been an exceptionally interesting and heartening project. Seeing a working example like Sweden gives me hope that countries like mine might someday emulate. We need to start by continuing to learn from Sweden's example.
My interview with Jennifer Joan Lee on Bloomberg TV was broadcast today. Thanks to everyone for all the very kind emails/ FB messages. Here's the link:
When examining similarities between US and Swedish sustainability practices, a skeptic might point to the different structures of corporate ownership that are prevalent in Sweden. The Swedish Government owns more than 50 large companies, including $25BB energy producer Vattenfall, V&S (producer of Absolut Vodka,) and the global bank Nordea with almost a half a trillion dollars in assets under management. While the US Government has arguably been trundling in this direction, Sweden far outpaces the US in terms of government ownership of their economy.
When it comes to providing clear and transparent reporting of the performance of those companies, the buck stops with Jenny Didong at the Ministry of Enterprise, Energy, and Communications. "One of our big improvements for this year was adding clear guidelines for sustainability reporting among government-owned enterprise," said Jenny. "In fact, over 90% of state-owned companies reported on their sustainability goals and measures; only 15% of listed companies did similarly!"
There is a great expression from renowned strategies Peter Drucker: "What gets measured gets done." By truly 'walking the walk' of sustainability metrics by making their state-owned companies set an example, Sweden really is setting the bar high for publicly-owned and private companies both in Sweden and globally.
An excellent, shiny PDF on their work is available here: http://www.sweden.gov.se/sb/d/574/a/133089
In Sweden, the Regeringskansliet has many programs aimed at helping Sweden stay world-class in the realms of environmental regulation, performance, and quite interestingly incentivization. At the innovative end of that spectrum is group called the Delegation for Sustainable Cities- and that's where Pernilla Knutsson works. "The Delegation is a two-year program; we were given 340 Million Swedish Crowns ($49MM USD) to distribute in the form of grants over a two-year period- 2009 and 2010," explained Pernilla. "The objective is to provide a 'boost' to cutting-edge examples of city planning that contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and represent new best practice related to environmental technology." In other words, the Delegation is there to help truly cutting-edge projects receive support that might not otherwise get- like a venture capital fund for cities. What's getting the most attention? "We have had 78 applications for the 2009 round; 24 for what we call 'practical' projects, and 54 for planning. In other words, most of the grant applications seem to be geared for longer-term efforts," -which is a good thing. Another interesting surprise: "When we started this delegation, our hypothesis was that mostly large cities would apply- but in actuality many of the smaller- and medium-sized cities are throwing their hat in the ring for these grants as well," said Pernilla. Because this program is so new, it is hard to say what effect it will have on Sweden's efforts to develop sustainable cities, but stay tuned to thedelegation's website for their decisions and a report on their impact.
The next stop was with Conny Hägg, also with the Environmental Ministry, and himself a veteran of the Climate Bill process in Sweden. To explain succinctly, Sweden has had a series of Climate Bills pass through their Parliament over the past decade. "The newest climate bill is very aggressive," admits Conny. Unveiled in March by the new Centre-Right government, the bill sets strict targets for energy efficiency, renewable energy, CO2 emissions, etc. for 2020 along with a strict zero fossil fuel useprovision by year 2030. A few interesting factors drive the evolution of Sweden's climate policy. Sweden has effectively decided that along with doing their own part to mitigate climate change, they would like to be on the forefront of climate issues going forward. In addition, every expert I spoke with including Conny pointed to a desire for Sweden to boost exports of energy & environment-related products and services. This points to the need for a more advanced regulatory environment, for which the Ministry has certainly done their part.
Imagine you had just spent 20 years turning a burned-out urban core from a carjacking capital to one of the world's greenest neighborhoods. Imagine as well that delegates from all over the world visited your city to find out how you did it- and then are so impressed upon touring the district that their first reaction is: "I'll take three." Then imagine being tasked with a way of making that possible.
The neighborhood, of course, is Hammarby Sjöstad. Conceived and developed in the early-mid 90's as Stockholm tried to build momentum for a 2004 Summer Olympics bid, Hammarby is one of the best examples of sustainability-from-the-ground-up. More on that in tomorrow's post.
The aforementioned mission is owned by a small collection of Ministries, Councils, and Institutes in Sweden, some of whom I met early this week. Today's discussions focused on the idea of marketing and exporting the idea of Swedish Sustainability as a whole. While yesterday's topic focused on the Swedish Trade Council's activities (most especially with their SymbioCity marketing platform,) today's chats took on a wider scope.
"Marketing Sweden is a great challenge," said the Swedish Institute's Susanna Wallgren, "because as a country we have this focus on ecology and harmony with nature that is quite unique and certainly very valuable given the global excitement about sustainable solutions. Getting that message out is the Swedish Institute's mission." Wallgren went on to mention that the end goal is simply to build familiarity - other global citizens are far more likely to do business with, visit, and care about a nation they know something about.
Micael Hagman at the Foreign Affairs Ministry described the challenge as specifically related to Sustainability very succinctly: "Our charge is to provide the setting for Swedish companies abroad- usually to take part in public procurement activities. This can be anything from a traditional wastewater plant up to a high tech, alternative energy installation." As part-owner of the STC (which was discussed in yesterday's post,) the Foreign Affairs Ministry focuses on Sweden's USP's (unique selling points,) not least of which is the fact that Sweden doesn't just talk about sustainable solutions.
What really makes Sweden different compared to other nations is that they have had real brick-and-mortar successes they can point to and actually show off. Växjö (more on them next week,) Malmö, and others are the result of hard work and difficult choices based on the need to solve crushing problems of their era.
"We didn't start with some grand sustainability concept, and then build cities that met a planned framework," said Hagman. "Most of the best practices we have developed over the decades were born of sheer necessity- when the oil crisis struck, we had to develop community water heating systems or face economic catastrophe. We needed to rapidly roll out wastewater treatment biogas systems for the same reasons, along with cleaning up our devastated wetlands and preventing eutrophication." But now, the challenge is to take that hard-won knowledge and practice and tell the world.
So back to our hypothetical shoppers from unnamed emerging economic powerhouses visiting the Hammarby neighborhood, checkbooks in hand. What's the current answer for those eager to purchase their very own copy? "At the moment, we are working on assembling a coalition of Swedish and Global companies that can answer that call," said Hagman. "But a very exciting development is that a new coalition, led by big Swedish companies, has created a micro-version of this concept called the SymbioCamp."
The SymbioCamp is, in a nutshell, a ready-made aid/refugee camp that has its future planned out. "Rather than just burning these camps, or forgetting about them, the SymbioCamp can take on a useful life after its function of fighting humanitarian crisis is over," continued Hagman. "Of course, the SymbioCamp design also aims to alleviate the many problems of suddenly condensed, usually harried human populations- water, shelter, etc. have been considered in this model." The SymbioCamp concept is very new; here you can see what Midroc, a coalition partner, has to say about it.
Hagman's next step is to find ways of building the SymbioCamp model up into a full district- or city-level package; one that works as well as its Swedish prototype but still respects its local environment, needs, and design aesthetic.
In conclusion- bringing the whole message of Sweden's competencies in the area of sustainability has been a long and difficult road, but it appears that groups like the STC, the Ministries, and the Institute are gaining ground. This blog will stay active in describing their progress.
The graph above illustrates what is undoubtedly one of Sweden's greatest successes in modern economic performance. Over a 16-year period, Sweden has grown their economy by roughly half while simultaneously decreasing their total carbon output by almost 10%, proving that carbon and economic growth are not always linearly correlated.
"Well of course," one might argue, "Sweden has always been obsessed with green." Not so- Sweden used to have the most oil-dependent economy in Europe in the 1970's.
While Sweden may have met huge successes in managing their own sustainability, the focus of today's discussion was on how Sweden was capitalizing on that success around the world. At the Swedish Trade Council's downtown Stockholm office, I met with an articulate and experienced ex-Deloitte consultant and previous head of STC's Chicago office, Håkan Dahlfors.
"Sweden has built a reputation as a sustainability center- in fact Stockholm is the 2010 EU Green Capital- and turning that success into an export machine is our big goal."
Håkan explained his primary mission- to support and build on the successes of Swedish Cleantech companies exporting abroad. The STC itself is tasked by the Swedish Foreign Ministry (which is its 50% owner, along with a Swedish Industrial Federation) to promote Swedish exports and help them find partners abroad. The Swedish government has wisely placed a special emphasis on exporting Cleantech, which according to SWENTEC- the Swedish Environmental Technology Council- accounted for 33 Billion Swedish Kroner in 2007 exports. This segment's exports were growing at approximately 20% per year in 2007, almost 8% faster than Swedish exports overall. But, as Håkan admits, there is a lot of room to grow- Cleantech only account for 0.2% of Sweden's current exports. Interestingly for those keen on Entrepreneurship: 80% of these companies Håkan works with have 10 employees or less! From the point of view of the Trade Council, Sweden's advantage stems from a few primary factors. The first is an insistence on a holistic, systems-thinking approach to what is broadly termed sustainability. In the US, much of the focus seems to be on how many LEED buildings we can amass. The Swedes, however, prefer to think of whole cities or even regions as an interacting system that can be tuned for maximum efficiency. Within the seven major sectors of design that require coordination to attain sustainability- Energy, Water, Waste, Transportation, Architecture, Landscape Planning, and Urban Functions- every sector must be part of the conversation to really move the needle. In other words, bolting solar panels onto a new office and calling it "green" doesn't really cut it- all the other major design sectors must also be considered. For example, waste can turn into energy, waste water can turn into fuel, and excessive heat from industry can warm up a household.
Another advantage is the wide use of the Public-Private Partnership (PPP.) In the US, these arrangements are gaining popularity, but not yet as popular as they are in Sweden. PPPs allow public entities to take advantage of the technology and efficiency of profit-driven companies to provide "product" to their citizens.
There are some limitations to the direct applications of this approach to be aware of. In Sweden, the municipality is a much stronger political being than in North America. Sweden also has a much more "collectivized" (or, some might use the dirty word socialized) system in general- as many as 50% of homes in Sweden get their hot water from city heating systems. Municipalities also have immense political and economic freedom to experiment with new methods and be held accountable.
Finally, Håkan explained some of the primary methods that STC uses to describe the value proposition of Swedish Technology abroad. The first is through the use of compelling marketing platforms like SymbioCity, which builds on a concept developed in 2002 by a group of Royal Academy scientists and presented at the UN's Johannesburg Summit on Sustainability. In a nutshell, this platform embodies the most advanced thinking about cities as the basic building blocks of sustainability systems (rather than nations, at a high level, or individual structures at a low level.) Using this platform, STC employs another method which involves sending delegations of companies, political groups, and stakeholders abroad. These trade delegations are fairly traditional, except that at STC they usually involve a wide variety of participants from the public and private sectors both in Sweden and the visiting country. In this way, potential partners get to meet their equivalents on both sides of the table and highlight best practices in a collegial fashion.
That's it for the first day- I've kept it fairly high-level, so please comment with any desire for more detail (or less!)
Håkan Dahlfors.
