Tampere is the only Nordic city to be included in the final of the international smart city competition. The competition is hosted by the annual fair and conference event Smart City Expo held in Barcelona, Spain. The winner will be announced on 18 November.
For the first time ever, Tampere is a winner candidate in the City Award category of the World Smart City Awards. The award will be given to a city that has created an exceptionally extensive strategy that takes residents into account and brings together different projects, initiatives and operating principles.
Tampere’s unique climate program was chosen from many options in smart city development
Tampere’s entry for the competition is focused on the Carbon-Neutral Tampere 2030 roadmap, which is the city’s wide-ranging climate programme. Climate work is supported by a climate budget and different forms of cooperation, such as the Tampere region climate partnerships for companies and associations and the Climate Hero campaign aimed at residents.
“Tampere has many strengths related to smart urban development, so we decided to enter into the competition and try to bring home that award for our sustainable development expertise. We want to share what we have learned and experienced”, says Teppo Rantanen, Executive Director of Growth, Innovation and Competitiveness Services at the City of Tampere.
The wide and participating climate work in Tampere will get international attention
Tampere’s proposal meets the competition’s criteria perfectly. Special aspects of creating the climate programme have included wide participation, assessing the impacts of the operations, or emissions and costs, as well as the planning and execution of implementation and follow-up.
“It’s great that our long-term work is internationally recognised. The roadmap has been created in cooperation with different city units, and different actors are committed to the programme, which is important for the execution of the actions”, states Laura Inha, Development Manager at the City of Tampere.
The roadmap of the city’s climate programme focuses primarily on the actions of the city organisation, but becoming carbon-neutral also requires cooperation with companies, associations, universities, residents and other stakeholders.
In addition to Tampere, the City Award finalists include Belo Horizonte (Brazil), Lisbon (Portugal), St Petersburg (Russia), Shanghai (China) and Yokohama (Japan). The winners will be announced in a live online gala on 18 November.
World Smart City Awards is a highly respected international competition that showcases progressive projects, ideas and strategies that make cities round the world livelier, more sustainable and financially more profitable. In 2020, proposals from 46 different countries for submitted for the competition’s seven different categories.
Laura Inha
Development Manager
Tel. +358 40 801 6035
Email laura.inha@tampere.fi
Teppo Rantanen
Executive Director of economic policy, competitiveness and innovation
Tel. +358 400 235 442
Email teppo.rantanen@tampere.fi