Mayor of Turku Minna Arve and the City’s Development Manager in Climate and Environment Policy Risto Veivo present Turku’s climate policy at the ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability World Congress.

The vast ICLEI World Congress in Montreal started on Wed 19 June

Turku’s climate policy objectives and determination are being introduced globally 19–22 June, when the vast ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability meeting takes place. The 4-day congress arranged every three years brings together the world’s leading city development specialists and representatives of local governments.

Mayor Minna Arve and the Development Manager in Climate and Environment Policy in the City of Turku Risto Veivo are representing Turku at the congress. Arve will have a presentation at the event about the carbon neutrality objectives in Turku’s climate policy and participate in a session for mayors, also fea-turing e.g. the Mayors of Heidelberg and Almada and the Debuty Mayor of Seoul as speakers.

As for Veivo, he will be attending an international specialist panel, introducing the combining of climate measures and smart city development in the Turku Smart and Wise spearhead project.

Citizen engagement is a top priority aspect of a successful climate strategy

The new Climate Plan of the City of Turku is a concrete pathway for making the city area carbon neutral by 2029 – and Climate-positive thereof. Turku has already implemented successful Climate Actions over the last ten years and has successfully reduced Greenhouse Gas emissions. By now, Turku has cut more than a quarter of the emissions as compared to the level of 1990.

Citizen engagement is a top priority aspect of a successful climate strategy. In Turku we have combined Climate Action, Social Inclusion and Smart Digitalisation into one, Mayor Minna Arve notes.

– We are empowering the heat-users to become prosumers and to take a more active role in managing their own energy use. So we are changing the grid into a two-way system and marketplace of heat.

– Citizens, businesses, societies, universities, schools and hospitals, housing associations and NGOs… everybody has a role to play in Climate Action.

Further information: