Milestones of Sustainable Cities Commission

The first EU funded project was granted to UBC and City of Turku in 1995. The project was called Municipal Environmental Auditing and it was launched on 1 March 1996 with the financial support from EU's Life-fund, the World Bank and the Finnish Ministry of the Environment. The project was implemented jointly by the cities of Turku and Helsinki in Finland, and Tallinn in Estonia, with the aim to develop a model for conducting environmental audits in Baltic cities.

The first Baltic Cities Bulletin is issued by the UBC General Secretariat. The Bulletin has been published every year since, 2-3 times a year.

Baltic Cities Environmental Bulletins had been prepared in the UBC Commission on Environment 1-2 times a year. The last issue was published in 2013 – and then the bulletin went into the online format.

Project LVRLAC (Lake Victoria Region Local Authorities Co-operation) aimed at transferring knowledge between the UBC and the Lake Victoria Region. The goal was to promote sustainable development and improve the standard of living of the inhabitants in the Lake Victoria Region through improving the administrative and institutional capacities of the local authorities.

Opening paragraph of the UBC LA21 Action Program:

"The Union of the Baltic Cities (UBC) shares the view that Local Agenda 21 (LA21) consists of the local participatory process and the local action program for achieving sustainable development. Sustainable development is a continuous, controlled and democratic process of societal change at global, regional and local levels, aimed at improving the quality of life for present and future generations. Sustainable development integrates environmental protection and efficient use of natural resources into other essential social, economic and cultural activities. Preserving biodiversity and reducing anthropogenic global climate change are examples of environmental goals of this process."

The programme was formerly called Agenda 21 Action Programme and it was implemented from 2004 to 2009.

Project PURE (Project on Urban Reduction of Eutrophication) aimed at tackling eutrophication by investing in enhanced phosphorus removal at wastewater treatment plants in the Baltic Sea Region. The objective was to enable WWTPs reach HELCOM recommendation on the phosphorous content in the outflow. PURE achieved annual reduction of at least 500 tons of P load to the Baltic Sea by direct investments in Latvia and Belarus. The project also produced a book on good practices, and an online database for benchmarking local activities. PURE became the first project in UBC SCC to focus on reducing the eutrophication in the Baltic Sea – but certainly not the last, and the cooperation with HELCOM continued further on.

CDP runs a global disclosure system for investors, companies, cities, states and regions to manage their environmental impacts. The strategic cooperation of the UBC – CDP is based on the Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2016 and renewed in 2018.

Agnieszka Ilola appointed as Acting Head of Secretariat.

The first Annual report is published, describing the activities implemented in SCC Secretariat over the past year. This and next reports are listed in the Publications section.

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