Latest news for selected city

Two new projects have begun in our Secretariat, where we look into achieving climate-neutrality: green mobility and climate budgeting process in the municipalities.

Mid-September is the perfect time to visit Turku, an ambitiously smart and sustainable city in Finland, working towards reaching carbon neutrality already in 2029. Turku is built around the river Aura – but what’s more important (at least where the international cooperation is concerned), it also stands on the shores of the Baltic Sea. Like in many other cities, for a long time Turku citizens have had a limited access to the sea due to different industries and port activities.

The report of 2021 looks into another successful year of UBC-CDP cooperation, as we follow the paths of 21 UBC member cities to climate goals 2030.

While the EU’s policies over the years have led to significant progress in improving the environment, and in raising standards across the EU Member States, many environmental challenges still prevail. With more than 70% of the EU’s population currently living in urban areas, cities are critical to meeting the EU's environmental objectives and in helping the EU to become a more sustainable region.

During the disclosure period, the following cities had disclosed their environmental data and good practices to the CDP-ICLEI Unified Reporting System: Aarhus (Denmark), Tallinn* (Estonia), Espoo (Finland), Turku (Finland), Helsinki (Finland), Porvoo (Finland), Kemi (Finland), Lahti (Finland), Rostock 

In the meantime, despite the uncertainty brought by COVID-19, we cannot say enough how happy we are to see 23 UBC cities disclosing and staying committed to their climate change mitigation efforts. In 2020 we saw 3 newcomers (Bergen, Porvoo, Tallinn) whom we would like to congratulate joining the disclosure and climate action for the better future. The UBC cities disclosing their data in 2020 were,

New report on UBC cities’ environmental data disclosure to CDP highlights increased interest in resilience and growing ambition in climate mitigation and adaptation among the cities.

Back in 2016, UBC and CDP agreed upon collaboration between the two organizations with the first cooperation activities taking place in spring 2017. As a result, UBC doubled the number of cities reporting to CDP from 6 to 20. This year, the number of the cities disclosing to CDP grew to 28 in despite of the busiest holiday season.

Dear member cities, dear partners, the new print version of the yearly Baltic Cities Sustainability Bulletin has been published at the UBC General Conference in Gdynia! The print copies will be send out soon to all our member cities, if you want to receive the bulletin in paper format, please contact us. Here you can read the online version. Enjoy!  

The next UBC General Conference with the topic of "Building smart cities in the Baltic Sea Region" is taking place from Oct 27th-30th in Gdynia, Poland! You can find the detailed programme and all practical information on the conference website!