IMAGE: ICLEI Europe

On November 20th the City of Stockholm (Sweden) was named the world’s smartest city during the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona. The City’s leadership in the European Smart Cities project GrowSmarter was the deciding factor for Stockholm to take home the award.

 

Gustaf Landahl, Project Coordinator for GrowSmarter and Head of Department for Planning and Environment in the Environment and Health Administration at the City of Stockholm, said when accepting the award: “As a representative of the City of Stockholm and also the GrowSmarter project, this award acknowledges what we have done in Stockholm for many years.” Then, he thanked the staff in Stockholm and the cities of Cologne and Barcelona for their partnership as Lighthouse Cities in GrowSmarter.

 

GrowSmarter’s project coordination team Gustaf Landahl, Lisa Enarsson and Sigrid Granström, all received the award during the ceremony on behalf of the City of Stockholm. “Stockholm is proof of what a connected, smart and sustainable city is. Winning the World Smart City Award is a testament to the huge journey we have been on both in the GrowSmarter project and in the City as a whole. That journey is never ending, but GrowSmarter has taken us an important step on the way,” project managers in the City of Stockholm Sigrid Granström and Lisa Enarsson highlighted.

 

The World Smart City Award recognises projects, ideas and strategies that promote sustainable urban development and this year more than 450 nominations were made from 54 different countries. The award is divided into seven categories and the city award is given to a city with global strategies combining project initiatives and policy implementations for their citizens. The other finalists in the city category were Bristol (UK), Curitiba (Brazil), Montevideo (Uruguay), Seoul (South Korea) and Tehran (Iran).

 

Stockholm has been leading the GrowSmarter project since the beginning of 2015. The project is funded by the European Union through the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme and brings together cities and industry to integrate and demonstrate ‘12 smart city solutions’ in energy, infrastructure and transport. GrowSmarter has renovated more than 130,000m2 in energy efficient ways, deployed 72 sustainable vehicles and much more to improve sustainability in its Lighthouse Cities.

 

The project will present its results at a final conference in Stockholm on 3 December.

 

The Smart City Expo World Congress is Europe’s largest Smart City Conference with over 20,000 participants from all around the world. The conference is a forum to exchange ideas about smart cities and innovations of the future.

 

 

 

More information about…

 

…the World Smart City Awards

…the City of Stockholm as a smart city

…GrowSmarter

 

Contact person:

 

Esben Pejstrup

Communications Lead, GrowSmarter, ICLEI Europe

E-mail: Esben.Pejstrup@iclei.org

Phone: +45 22 14 49 60