Policy & Cooperation Finland Inspiration & Sustainable Choices
picture on top: Helsinki Marketing - “www.MyHelsinki.fi Think Sustainable service.”
Think Sustainably is a service which resembles a city guide with sustainability as the main factor. It allows local residents and foreign visitors to make sustainable choices on a daily basis. It filters content from the MyHelsinki.fi website to suggest sustainable services, such as restaurants, shops, sights, events and accommodationSmart Map is a mapping of initiatives that promotes access over ownership, for instance bike kitchens where volunteers show you how to fix your bike, electric car pools, and solidarity fridges where anybody can leave and pick up food.
The base of the service is in tailor-made criteria for the city of Helsinki that have been developed together with the independent think tank Demos Helsinki, along with local interest groups and sustainability experts. The criteria can be used as a set of tools to develop operations. They highlight ecological sustainability and specifically address climate change, yet also consider social sustainability.
What is the mission of the project?
The purpose is to encourage different operators to find an impressive array of solutions that encourage customers and visitors to engage in more sustainable lifestyles.
Where and when did the project start?
Pilot launched in June 2019 in Helsinki.
Where is the project offered today?
Helsinki, Finland.
To whom is this project aimed? Who belongs to your target group?
The purpose is to encourage different operators to find an impressive array of solutions that encourage customers and visitors to engage in more sustainable lifestyles.
picture: Helsinki Marketing - “www.MyHelsinki.fi Think Sustainable service.”
What do you consider to be the most innovative aspects of your concept?
The service is the first of its kind digital city guide. Not only do users get an overview of the city, but they are empowered to make sustainable choices just like the service providers are. Due to that, users can recognise main issues when it comes to climate change, and in the best case incorporate some choices in their daily life at home and abroad.
What are the most important impacts of the project in terms of sustainability?
Think Sustainably is part of the local government’s Carbon Neutral Helsinki Initiative, which aims to make the city carbon neutral by 2035. That would also involve cutting each resident’s carbon footprint to one-quarter of what it is at present. The service helps to make choices in order to reach these goals while also addressing climate change directly.
Which aspects are particularly interesting from a design perspective?
"As a small city, Helsinki could be a “test-bed” for solutions that larger cities could scale up." Laura Aalto.
Therefore, Helsinki can be attractive for new ideas regarding sustainability in service design. To test, evaluate, improve and scale them when they work.
Do you also offer the service digitally?
The service is part of the MyHelsinki.fi website.
What are some interesting numbers about the project?
Every Finn should reduce their carbon footprint from 10.3 tonnes to 2.5 tonnes by the year 2030. If one person in each of the 2.6 million households existing in Finland would reduce their carbon footprint by 20%, we would reach 38% of the goals set for Finland in the Paris climate agreement for reducing emissions.
What happens next? What are your goals?
The service will be further developed in terms of participants, criteria and technical features. This development work is done together with think tank Demos Helsinki, and local interest groups and sustainability experts.
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