Stay Cool - a joint sustainable effort in Umea

Umea is working in line with the EU Baltic Sea Strategy priorities on several levels. Our Capital of Culture mission Stay Cool focuses on global warming and to achieve this Umea will utilise the co-creative capacity, passion and curiosity of our citizens and partners. The city has based its action plan for sustainable development on the Aalborg commitments. Umea collaborates with five other local authorities in the Umea Region with the ambition of working together in the whole range of sustainable development, social, environmental and economic. In Umea, a local baseline already existed through a first Living Environment Report published in 2006 covering local environment and public health indicators. Local environment and public health objectives were decided on by the Municipal Council in 2008 and they focus on two areas: an attractive living environment and an energy-efficient society where energy usage is based on renewable energy sources.

Increasing the urban development density is one way to achieve an attractive living environment and an energy-efficient community. This is especially important in central Umea where air pollution exceeds the nationally recommended levels. An action program has therefore been designed where long-term, innovative planning is one of the proposed activities to develop a less car-dependent 700 apartments are built located less than 100 meters from the largest high-speed rail and bus transport hub and one of the most expansive work areas in northern Sweden, Umea university campus and the University hospital.This site was previously heavily contaminated and part of the project has been sanitation to create an attractive living environment. The city has set up a car pool for city employees and citizens to reduce the need for private vehicles. When fully developed in 2010, it will have about 150 vehicles. The Umea Region's municipalities have also initiated a joint office for sustainable transports which is available to the inhabitants of the region. It has launched an innovative web tool that allows the inhabitants to drawtheir travel plan on a map and compare the environmental impact, time, cost and calorie consumption of different modes of transports i.e., walking, cycling, car, bus, etc.

A network of building contractors and managers, banking and real estate managers and local and regional public authorities has been formed. The ambition is to make Umea a market leader in energy-efficient housing in cold climates and the network has agreed on a declaration of intention to that affect.

The energy production of district heating is dominated by the locally-owned Umea Energy. In 2010 when the Dava 2 combined heat and power plant will be put into operation (no fossil fuels), Umea will have one of the most environmentally-friendly district heating systems in the entire Baltic Sea Region.