Tallinn to lead project of European cities in sustainable development

  • 2021-04-09
  • BNS/TBT Staff

TALLINN – The council of Tallinn on Thursday approved the city's participation as the leading partner in an international project that will advance the possibilities of European cities to implement sustainable development goals through sharing various experiences and good practices of the local level.

The role of leading partner in the project "SDGs in Cities" offers the city of Tallinn a unique opportunity to introduce Tallinn's development strategy and actions related to the green transition under the aegis of sustainable development on a high international level, spokespeople for the city council said.

Andres Kollist, the head of the innovation committee of the city council, said that a framework of sustainable development and its sub-goals have been agreed upon on the level of the UN, of which, in the context of Tallinn, sustainable energy, measures to counter climate change and the fields of health and wellbeing can be highlighted. 

"Already the leading of such consortium definitely will provide the city with experience, whereas we also need to emphasize that as a result of the planning also practical activities will be carried out that support the implementation of Tallinn's green capital objectives," Kollist said, adding that in addition to garnering extensive experience in cooperation, Tallinn will get a roadmap of sustainable development that will be linked to the development strategy Tallinn 2035.

Also Mart Luik, deputy chairman of the city council, described the charting of the sustainable development goals of European cities and sharing of the experiences necessary for their implementation, which takes place with Tallinn at the helm, as definitely a welcome project. 

"After all, we all want to live in and to leave to our children a natural environment that is greener, cleaner, more human friendly and resource efficient. The Tallinn city council at the end of last year adopted the development strategy Tallinn 2035, which offers a detailed description of the  city's long-term plan. Tallinn has a vision for the future to share with other European cities, and hopefully we too will learn new and useful things from that project," Luik said.

Altogether 19 European cities take part in the project. In each partner city an Urbact Local Group bringing together experts both from within the organization of the city and outside will be set up. In these work groups, the experiences and examples of good practice of the cities participating in the project in planning the implementation of sustainable development goals will be analyzed and shared. As a result, an action plan of Tallinn for the implementation of sustainable development goals on the level of the city will be devised by employing methods of inclusion and co-creation.

The project runs until December 2022. The size of the budget of the project for Tallinn is 309,150 euros and the portion of it financed by the city is 92,745 euros, with the rest made up of external support.