Green and Sustainable Cities: A Possible Vision?
March 27, 2021

Green and Sustainable Cities: A Possible Vision?

March 27, 2021

Many factors are required to build green and environmentally friendly cities; however, in short, broad-based participation and support from stakeholders including local leaders, entrepreneurs, academics and civil society underpin the viability of Nordic green models. The topic is the focus of discussion in the conference “Nordic Green Capitals – Leadership, Governance, Sustainability and Innovation” co-hosted by Fulbright School of Public Policy and Management (FSPPM) and Nordic Embassies in Vietnam (Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden). The event is to celebrate Nordic Day 2021. 


The conference sets a discussion forum for Nordic countries and Vietnam to exchange their experiences and lessons in building green, innovative and sustainable cities. Despite differences in backgrounds, implications from Nordic models are considered valuable reference sources for Vietnam to look up to in their implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) – an initiative by United Nations, particularly SDG11 “building comprehensive, safe, resilient and sustainable urban cities”. 

Dr. Vu Thanh Tu Anh, Dean of Fulbright School of Public Policy and Management, emphasized urban development is one growth engine fueling the country’s development in the coming decade. The challenge of urbanization in Vietnam is how to enhance the competitiveness of cities, control negative externalities such as pollution and traffic congestion, and effectively respond to disasters and climate change so that cities are safe and livable. 


Echoing these ideas, Ambassador of Denmark to Vietnam, H.E. Kim Højlund Christensen asserted that many countries are now facing with the challenge of how to address basic needs in housing, transport, energy, and waste management of increasing urban population in sustainable manners. The small scale and effective governance systems in Nordic cities put them at an advantage over Vietnam cities. However, in the initial stages of sustainable urbanization, Nordic countries stumbled on similar problems now facing Vietnam. In the past decades, Nordic capitals had to make innovative political and administrative decisions to project their cities into the trajectory of sustainable growth.

  

“20 years ago, I’d be perplexed at the idea of swimming in Copenhagen rivers. But now, this turns out to be a good suggestion on warm summer days. Some Copenhagen citizens even have the courage to go swimming during winter in these rivers,” recounted humorously by the Danish Ambassador on the achievements of his country resulting from their efforts to promote sustainable growth policies. 

The key to multi-stake cooperation 

Illustrious speakers from Nordic city governments, research institutes, or NGOs shared their insights and ideas on how Nordic countries built their sustainable cities. In addition to historical and cultural factors which are conducive to the success of Nordic models, most of the speakers highlight the role of education in improving public awareness in protecting the environment, public-private partnership, and civil societies in implementing sustainable goals. 


Eva Schelin, CEO of Knowledge Foundation, an organization financing research initiatives for 22 universities in Sweden, believed that building cooperative partnership among stakeholders impacted by and involved in planning, funding, and developing smart cities is one crucial key to success. 

There should be policy tools to promote sustainable development, the partnership between academia and private sector to achieve mutual understanding of motives driving different stakeholders to experiment and implement new innovations in their work,” said Ms. Schelin. 


Since 1994, Knowledge Foundation has funded 1 million USD for 3324 research projects in universities under the close collaboration with domestic enterprises. Swedish government initiated an innovation program that cooperated with academia and enterprises to build and develop livable cities. For a city to be livable, it must be clean, convenient (locations should be within 15-minute distance), accessible, energy-efficient, carbon-neutral, and diversified. Under this close-knit cooperation, the Swedish government can set up an appropriate regulatory framework and enterprises can finance innovative research and experiments while the academia are enabled to seek and test new ideas. 

“Building sustainable cities require a great deal of knowledge, efforts, courage, skills, and support policies. The government has to work closely with the private sector and civil society to work towards this aim,” concluded by the speaker.  


Karine Herzberg, Special Advisor of Oslo Department of Transport and Environment, shared flexible approaches to work with the city government during the process of transforming Oslo into a zero-emission and climate-adaptive city. These methods include drafting a climate budget within the normal budgeting process and this new budget component serves as a planning and tracking tool to oversee the implementation of climate objectives. Climate budget is proven to be an effective governance tool helping city leaders to identify expenses and units accountable to specific tasks and explore solutions to cut emissions effectively. 


Jenny Skagestad, the Transportation Consultant for ZERO organization (Zero Emission Resource Organization) which designs and implements climate solutions, explained solutions Norway government applies to electrify their urban transportation system. In detail, city governments in this country must buy and use electric transport services and vehicles, build charging stations and provide subsidies/economic favors and space for electric vehicles. Oslo is now having the highest rate of electric vehicles per capita in the world. 

Implications for Vietnam 

Public awareness of the importance of the environment and their love for nature are determinants contributing to the success stories in Nordic countries. However, Ms. Karine Hertzberg believed it is important that city leaders need to implement and reinforce strong and consistent environmental policies; these policies must work to achieve environmental solutions benefitting citizens. At the same time, proposed solutions should ensure social and economic equity so that public transports are accessible to low-income residents.  


Lykke Leonardsen, managing director of Sustainable and Adaptive City Solutions in Copenhagen emphasized the importance of education to improve local habitants’ awareness of sustainable development and involve their participation in planning and building greener cities. 

Dr. Le Viet Phu, Fulbright Faculty, argued that to build green capitals in Nordic models, Vietnam needs to focus on some core issues such as energy policies, transportation, waste management, and air pollution. In Vietnam, alternative energies can’t override the dominance of conventional fossil fuels. 

One reason cited by Fulbright expert is that the current transmission and load grids cannot be developed in a short time, leading to infrastructure bottlenecks. Legal regulations relating to foreign investments and pricing policies for alternative energies are not well defined as well, deterring the participation of foreign investors. Therefore, to boost the growth of renewable energies, policies for transmission to alternative sources of energy such as solar power, wind power should be put in place. 


Jenney Skagestad analyzed that Vietnam is facing similar challenges as Nordic countries during their first stages of greening urban spaces. Many big cities in the world, even in China or U.S., are transforming from emission vehicles to electric vehicles. Given the electrification rate, it would take these countries 5-10 years to achieve the current status of Norway. She believed the most important factor is that leaders in these cities allow citizens to experience electric vehicles, an approach adopted by Norway leaders 10 years ago. Norway put up testing dates when citizens can experiment driving these zero-emission cars and see for themselves how transport becomes convenient and greener as compared with traditional transportation. 


“When citizens and enterprises have opportunities to test and experience driving these new modes of moving, they are more interested in electric vehicles ranging from electric bikes, electric subways, trams, ferries, and electric cabs,” explained by the expert. 

In the first stages of the electrification project, the city can design public procurement plan to buy and equip electric vehicles for local mass transportation – one suggestion from the speaker. 

  • Thúy Hằng

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