Karlskrona and Sustainability

Karlskrona has been working for many years towards being an ecological sustainable municipality. The city belongs to the Association of Swedish Eco-municipal-ities (www.sekom.nu), and tries to implement four sustainability principles (see fact box) in the decision-process. All of the municipality's departments with environmental impact (waste, wastewater, energy production, roadworks and transportation) are certified with ISO 14001). Only green electricity is provided to the public buildings.and most of them is warmed up with bio fuelled district heating.

The Blekinge Institute of Technology in Karlskrona with its unique international master programme "Strategic Leadership Towards Sustainability" gives many opportunities to cooperate on projects within the sustainability field. Having the lion's share (about 1650 islands and islets) of Sweden's most southern archipelago within the border, the city has been always especially concerned about the Baltic Sea. The Eastern part of the archipelago is of international importance both owing to the Ramsar Convention, the EU's Natura 2000 network and Helcom Baltic Sea Protected Area. Karlskrona is working hard together with two neighbouring municipalities, the Blekinge County administration and citizens living in the area to getthe"Ble-kinge Archipelago and Coast"appointed as a Biosphere Reserve by I iNF^rn I ntc nf nrniprtç have started as a result, ranging from getting grazing animals back to the islands, creating new routes for yachting, and getting better waste water treatment to help combat eutrophication of the Baltic Sea. The final application is about to be handed in.

The municipality has high expectations towards the EU Baltic Sea Strategy. The city representatives took part in the roundtable on environmental issues in Gdansk last November to give input to I the environmental dimension of the strategy.