Many of the practices arising from the local governments' decisions provide excellent support to the attainment of sustainable development on the local level. These practices can also act as useful models for other cities. The intention with the Best Environmental Practice in Baltic Cities Award is to encourage member cities to develop their administration and services in innovative ways for the good of the whole municipality and its citizens.

The first UBC Commission on Environment Environmental Award was run in 1999 and has since been organized every second year. The award in year 2009 was given to the city of Umeå, Sweden for their efforts to reduce the air pollution caused by taxicabs.

The city of Umeå, Sweden, is the winner of the Best Environmental Practice in Baltic Cities Award 2009. The winner was announced at the Union of the Baltic Cities (UBC) tenth General Conference in Kristiansand, Norway, on 25th September.

As many other cities in Europe, Umeå has problems with air pollution. In fact, Umeå exceeds the limits, and that makes it one of the biggest challenges for the town. The winning practice, No idling taxicabs in Umeå, has contributed a lot to the environmental goal for improving the air in Umeå.

In Umeå, there are 200 taxicabs that run an average of 300 days/year. The goal was to make visible that idling taxicabs was a problem, to stop unnecessarily idling, and to reduce the discharge of carbon dioxide. This was done through education of all taxi drivers. The drivers were also challenged to a competition. The driver that could reduce their fuel consumption of their car the most in relation to the quantity of kilometres driven would win a very special price! Also the media was made aware of the project so that passengers would remind the drivers when they forgot to turn off their engine.

The Best Environmental Practice in Baltic Cities award committee, deciding on the awards, consisted of the co-chairman of UBC Commission on Environment, Mikko Jokinen, Head of Environmental Department Øystein Holvik from the city of Kristiansand and Environmental coordinator So Hie Kim-Hellström from the previous award winner (2007), Växjö.

Read more about the

• Previous award winners

More information:
Stella Aaltonen
Network Manager, UBC Commission on Environment
firstname.surname@ubc.net

The city of Växjö, Sweden, won the Best Environmental Practice in Baltic Cities Award 2007 for their sustainable energy management. Växjö has created a climate strategy, Fossil Fuel Free Växjö, including goals and actions within heating, transport, energy efficiency and behavioural change. It has been said that the CO2 emissions shall be reduced by 50 per cent per capita until 2010 compared to 1993. There is a goal of a 70 per cent reduction until 2025. By year 2005, a reduction of 24 per cent had been accomplished.

Best Environmental Practice in Baltic Cities Award 2005 was given to the City of Kaunas, Lithuania. The city has succeeded with the Modernization of the public transport network in the City

• Kaunas has modernized the public transport and modified public transport route layout
• the renewed bus and trolleybus fleet reduces gas emissions according to European standards
• microbuses and taxi vans operated by private companies are integrated in the same control system with municipal transport, which improves co-ordination of public transport
• 60 % of the citizens use the public transport
• The renewal of vehicle fleet improves convenience of travelling and increases the status of public transport systems

Best Environmental Practice in Baltic Cities Award 2003 was given to the City of Cēsis, Latvia

• the city has in an innovative way involved citizens and other stakeholders in the planning process and practical work for improving the bio-diversity and the green areas in the city
• the city has formed the basis for a long-term participatory process with the Environmental Development Board (EDB) taking part not only in the greenery area but also influencing in policy areas like territorial planning

Best Environmental Practice in Baltic Cities Award 2001 was given to the City of Gdansk, Poland

• special emphasis was put on innovative combination of environmental and social goals
• Award went to the city of Gdansk with their Ecological Sobieszewska Island project
• Sobieswska Island serves a delighting example of how the change for more ecological direction can boost both the economy and the wellbeing of local people. In the beginning of 1990s the Island, which lies on the Baltic Sea coast, in the Municipality of Gdansk, suffered from severe environmental problems, such as polluted soil and surface and also air pollution caused by coal heating
• Elaboration of new spatial plan for the Island (EWS), landscape preservation, construction and modernization of infrastructure, green tourism and recreation as well as ecological education are examples of implemented activities

Best Environmental Practice in Baltic Cities Award 1999 was given to the City of Tartu, Estonia

• Award goes to the Tartu Agenda 21
• the city has carried out projects for sustainable environmental development within the framework of Tartu Agenda 21 since 1995. Since then, there has been several years of hard work, which had logical and realistic aims concerning sustainable development.