Copenhagen is a world-renowned example of a “green city”, and is the latest Nordic city to receive the European Commission’s Green Capital Award. The green economy was one of the key factors that caught the attention of the judges. Particularly impressive is the way that the city works in partnership with private sector actors, universities, and citizens to achieve its goals. Given everything that Copenhagen has achieved, the city’s continued pursuit of a green economy provides interesting insight into the future of urban green growth.
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Copenhagen’s green profile in numbers
- 55% of Copenhageners cycle to work or school/college
- 31% of its electricity needs are met by wind energy
- 24% cut in carbon emissions between 2005 and 2012
- 90% of building waste is reused (58% recycled, 40% used to fuel the cities district heating network)
- <2% of total waste goes to landfills
- 96% of Copenhageners live within 15 minutes of a large green or blue area
- 17% of food consumed is organic (75% in municipal organisations)
- 98% of households are served by district heating
- 25,000 people in Greater Copenhagen are employed in green industries
- €3.64 billion will be generated by the green sector by 2025
- Zero carbon emissions goal for 2025
Measuring local green growth transitions
Greater Copenhagen was the test site for the OECD’s local green growth indicator framework, which is designed to “score” a city’s progress towards a green economy. The results of the study suggest that Greater Copenhagen is progressing well, and attributes this success to “a unique combination of elements including: the specific institutional, cultural and resource capacities of the city; the installation of the district heating system, the drive for energy security through renewable energy (particularly the wind industry) and the tradition of collaboration and consensus-building within the political system” (Martinez-Fernandez et al. 2013, p. 12–13). Despite this, there remains much work to be done. Ten key actions were identified that would support continued green growth:
- Investing in capacity for green jobs, skills, and entrepreneurship
- Accelerating the transfer and diffusion of new knowledge and technology
- Fostering “disruptive” innovation
- Enhancing funding for innovation and attracting foreign direct investment
- Strengthening cross-sector linkages to connect global and local firms
- Developing a bottom-up, next generation governance architecture
- Developing a people-driven investment agenda
- Facilitating knowledge-intensive green activities for the Cleantech Cluster
- Stimulating education, research, and exchange programmes, and
- Investing in indicator data collection at the local level while coordinating with national agendas (Martinez-Fernandez et al. 2013, p. 13–16).
Such an extensive “to-do” list may appear daunting at first, particularly to cities just setting out on their green growth journey; however, two points are worth bearing in mind. First, the indicator framework is designed to be implemented in collaboration with local stakeholders, and as a result, the outcome will reflect the starting point. Second, with respect to the green growth agenda in general, considering what comes next for a city already quite advanced in terms of green growth indicators is useful in providing insight into the future of urban green growth.
Regional dimension
As the capital, Copenhagen’s green growth agenda has implications for not only the development of the region, but also Denmark as a whole. Denmark is a small country with limited natural resources, so it relies heavily on human resources as a driver of its national economy. Innovation is a large part of this, and Denmark fares well in measures of innovation both at a European and a global level. The 6,000 companies that make up Copenhagen’s green sector are an integral part of this success. The green sector also appears to fare better in unfavourable economic conditions compared with other industries. During the financial crisis, the green sector maintained a growth rate of 8% per year, while the Danish economy as a whole only grew by 1.1%.
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State of Green