Sweden aiding search for sustainable growth

For the first time in history, more than half of the world's population will be living in cities and towns this year, according to the United Nations Population Fund.

Yet urban areas consume a large share of non-renewable resources, produce vast amounts of refuse and an enormous amount of air and water pollution.

Planners say it is crucial to find answers to questions of how urban growth can best be managed. The global population is likely to rise from 6 to 9 billion by 2050. In 20 years, as much as 60 percent all people will live in cities. Sustainable urban areas are key to the quality of life in the future - and perhaps to survival itself.

The Swedish initiative

SymbioCity is an initiative by the Swedish government, through the Swedish Trade Council, as part of the drive for worldwide sustainable urban development. It is a concept that was first presented at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2002.

The approach promotes holistic and sustainable urban development - finding potential synergies in urban functions and unlocking their efficiency and profitability.

Although SymbioCity is a Swedish concept, it has been applied or has influenced several urban locales around the world, including in China:

Luodian Town, Shanghai. Luodian is a Swedish-Nordic town featuring an environment that combines beauty and functionality. It is inspired by the best in Swedish architecture, urban planning and environmental knowledge. The town will accommodate some 30,000 residents.

Dongli Lake, Tianjin. Dongli is a new town that will be built outside Tianjin. The ambition is to create a settlement with a clear ecological profile and a high level of environmental consideration. Swedish architects have been invited to create a conceptual master plan and a blueprint for the project's first stage of development.

Gangdong, Tianjin. Gangdong is a new development underway southeast of the center of Tianjin. When completed, it will have a total of 145,000 residents. The Swedish master plan has a strong focus on water, and features a sprawling park placed on an island created in an artificial lake.

"The mission of SymbioCity is to make sustainable urban development possible by promoting smart investment in technology in a novel way," says Torbjorn Yngwe Back, commercial counselor at the Swedish Trade Council in China.

"In China we use the approach together with the Environmental Center of the Swedish Embassy as well as Swedish companies and their Chinese partners. Close Sino-Swedish cooperation is crucial in order to get the benefits we want. The local Chinese partners make the implementation possible."

SymbioCity reflects Sweden's expertise and experience in sustainability. The concept was developed by several hundred Swedish consultants, contractors and system suppliers organizing various networks to spread the vision of sustainable urbanization and making the distance to implementation as short as possible.

Sustainable thinking

Sweden is a pioneer in sustainable thinking. As early as the 1960s, the nation recognized that the rapid loss of natural resources had to be confronted. It took a leading role in organizing the first UN conference on the environment, which was held in Stockholm in 1972.

During the oil crises of the 1970s and 1980s, tremendous efforts were made to find new sources of energy, create new ways to insulate buildings and develop automatic energy saving systems.

Since 1970, the dependence on oil for heating and generating electricity in Sweden has fallen by 90 percent. From 1990 to 2006, Swedish carbon dioxide emissions fell 9 percent, while at the same time its gross national product increased by 44 percent, proving that sustainable thinking can make a crucial difference in decoupling environmental issues from economic performance.

For more information, visit www.symbiocity.org

Sources: Swedish Trade Council

(China Daily 04/14/2008 page16)