Stockholm - The European Green Capital 2010
Posted : October 16, 2009 by John, Category: Building Regulations, Uncategorized
It was on a recent trip to Sweden that I met a very colourful gentleman called the Swedish Chef. On discussing how to design a true sustainable building he replied “Don’t worry if you have to design a sustainable building, just use the VE!”
Sweden as a country has a great reputation in sustainability and energy efficiency and has recently been selected as the European Green Capital for 2010.
During my trip there I spent a number of days in Stockholm and learnt that it was the city council’s holistic vision that has lead the way for Stockholm becoming one of Europe’s most sustainable cities. It combines both growth and sustainable development. The city council has an ambitious target of becoming fossil fuel free by 2050 and many design teams are using BREEAM Europe to ensure buildings are playing there part in achieving the 2050 goal.
Overall Stockholm can be depicted as a city with very strong green programmes and effective measures across the board. Innovative ideas such as vegetated roofs have been put into practice. The city has an excellent structure of green and blue areas and, in fact 95% of the population lives only 300m away from green areas, thus catering for better well being, recreation, swimming, boating, water purification, noise reduction, enhancement of biodiversity and ecology.
The local transport system has taken several positive steps towards sustainability over the last ten years. A very broad and extensive range of measures have been adopted, including a successful and pioneering congestion charging system with good documented results in terms of reduced car use, and an increase in public transport share, included cycling. More than 75% of fuel stations in Stockholm now offer ethanol or biogas and all petrol solid in the region contains 5% ethanol.
As far as CO2 emissions are concerned, there has been a 25% reduction per capita in Stockholm emissions since 1990 which I believe can act as a bench mark for the rest of Europe.
Comments
No Comments
Leave a reply