​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​On July 8^th, the City Council of Espoo, Finland hosted the ENVE commission seminar on "Innovative local action to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals", as proposed by Ms Sirpa Hertell (FI/EPP).

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The aim of the seminar is to share the experience of Espoo and other cities across Europe in their transition towards a low-carbon, climate-neutral and resource-efficient and biodiverse city.

It is also an opportunity to reflect on the main barriers and enablers that allowed cities to achieve the fight against climate change through the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The City of Espoo and the Helsinki Regional Council set the scene by presenting the SDGs actions ongoing at local and regional level.  

The first part of the seminar provided an overview on the current EU Finnish Presidency priorities and the work undertook at national level by the Finnish government.

It also provided an overview on the work that JRC (Joint Research Centre of the European Commission) has done on local and regional action for climate change.

An example is the publication "The Future of Cities"(see other material in the presentation on the right column of this page).

The second part of the seminar focuses on the actions taken to implement SDGs. In particular by Basque country in Spain, by LAG 21 in Germany and Kuntaliito in Finland.

These elements contributed to the debate with ENVE members, aimed at reflecting on policy messages and local action feeding the CoR roadmap towards UNFCCC COP25.

The day concluded with a study visit to the clean-energy company Fortum that has co-developed with Espoo a series of sustainable solutions in electricity, heating and cooling.