Swedish strategic innovation programme for climate-neutral cities by 2030. Collaborates with Dark Matter Labs on System Demonstrators in Lund and Stockholm.
Viable Cities explores how local energy systems can reshape urban climate action — not just as infrastructure, but as participatory governance. The EnergyNet model, tested in Lund, treats energy as a coordinated system involving households, property owners, and municipalities.
A Swedish municipality embeds circular economy into budget processes and public institutions, treating reuse not as a side project but as core governance infrastructure. The results: 250 tons of CO2 avoided, millions saved, and a model others can copy.
Viable Cities opens new call to expand beyond its 48-city Climate Neutral Cities 2030 initiative. The expansion tests whether collaborative governance models can scale — a recurring question in transition practice.
UniCities transitions from project to partnership, positioning Ukrainian universities as laboratories for integrated climate transition and post-war recovery — a model for resilience-centered governance under extreme constraint.
Vendela Karlsson spent autumn 2025 embedded in Viable Cities' communications team, translating urban climate transition work into accessible formats. A small case study in how governance initiatives become legible — and who does that work.
A Swedish mid-sized city maps who pays for climate transition and who benefits — finding that while citizens and industry carry costs, the municipality's role is creating conditions for transformation, not funding it.
Sweden's Viable Cities seeks communications interns to help 29 cities navigate climate neutrality transitions. The work touches a persistent challenge: how to make systemic change legible and compelling to publics who must ultimately enact it.
A Swedish industrial city places climate transition in a shopping mall — treating governance not as policy abstraction but as something residents encounter while buying groceries. The experiment tests whether municipal legitimacy can be built through visibility.