All residents to take a climate leap

All residents to take a climate leap

The first step in climate change mitigation in Lappeenranta was a huge long leap taken in district heat production in 2010: That was when the Mertaniemi natural gas power station was replaced with the Kaukas biopower plant, which runs on wood-based fuels. As a result, carbon dioxide emissions from district heating were more than halved in just a few years.

The City's Development Director Markku Heinonen knows that all Lappeenranta residents must be on board to achieve the next step, with the biggest challenge being the reduction of traffic emissions. The long-term goal is for Lappeenranta to be waste-free and carbon-neutral by 2050.

With a twinkle in his eye, Markku Heinonen admits that in Lappeenranta they had to be told by others that they were leading the way in terms of climate change mitigation.

"For a while we wondered at the statistics and accepted the praise shyly, but now we cannot hide our excitement. Since the introduction of the Kaukas biopower plant, praise and thanks have been pouring in, and the city has been invited to join the frontrunners in climate change mitigation. Most recently, we took part in a resource wisdom project run by Sitra, in which we were among the leading cities along with Jyväskylä, Turku and Forssa," Heinonen says.

"Earlier this summer, we were at a national event related to the resource wisdom project and some of our local councillors kept coming to me asking if it really was us they were talking about," Heinonen laughs.

Heinonen himself is used to the attention by now. In March 2014, he was in Vancouver, Canada, when Lappeenranta was announced as the only Finnish city among the top 14 cities in the international Earth Hour City Challenge organised by WWF.

The Kaukas biopower plant is not the only concrete evidence Lappeenranta has to show. There's also the Kivisalmi pumping station and the Muukko wind park. And there's more to come: A revamping of the service network, in the western parts of the city, will be conducted with resource wisdom in mind, and the energy efficient residential area of Armila is also planned, which will be within walking distance of the services in the city centre.

Heinonen is also excited about the idea of building a shared biogas plant for Lappeenrannan Energia and UPM, which could turn wastewater and industrial sludge into biodiesel used as a transport fuel.

Running wheels on electricity or biogas, carpooling or cycling to work

The next climate leap for Lappeenranta requires traffic emissions to be reduced.

"In practice, this means people swapping their cars for vehicles running on electricity or biogas. Of course, when inviting tenders for the city's bus services, we can insist that the buses do not use fossil fuels. However, the city's activities are just a drop in the ocean if petrol use in commuter traffic is not reduced," Markku Heinonen says.

He points out that if the number of electric cars was to increase, other charging stations would be built in addition to the one at P-Pormestari.

"And what about carpooling and ridesharing? Could people commuting to the city centre ride together with others from the same residential area? For instance, people living along the same street could agree on a spot and a time for starting out," Heinonen says, explaining his vision, and continues that this would also enhance communal spirit and how people cared about each other.

The Development Director is not leaving all this up to the residents, though. The city and private sector companies can also actively encourage cycling to work, for example.

"Well maintained and safe pedestrian and cycling routes encourage functional exercise, and I think that, in addition to rewarding people for cycling to work, we could also reward companies for providing proper changing rooms for their employees.

One man’s waste is another man’s resource

Before going on summer leave, Director Heinonen hosted a delegation from Africa, which came to learn the Finnish way of sorting waste, for example.

– Here in South Karelia, we are already burning or reusing 90% of all waste. The situation is very different in the home country of the delegation, where 100% of waste is disposed at the landfill.

However, there is also room for improvement in South Karelia.

– We can be waste-free if one man uses another man’s waste as a resource. It is worth exploring whether plastic and construction waste, for example, could be compressed into building elements.

– Ordinary citizens can favour recycling, buy and sell goods at flea markets and host swap parties. Grandparents have the best tips, because previous generations knew how to consume sensibly.

Walking to the store or market square

Markku Heinonen feels that environmental targets should also be set for supermarkets, or at least put some solar panels on their massive roofs.

He is in favour of improvements to the city centre and regional centres so that trips to the store would be made more often on foot: Services and housing to the city centre, as is being done in Lappeenranta. Grocery stores along the road, as on the Lauritsalantie Road in Kaukas. Services and supermarkets in regional centres, as there are in Sammonlahti.

The Director, who favours local food when he goes to the market square to buy potatoes has not been forcing his opinion about the future location of the market square on anyone, but he is urging the association for market traders to consider where they could get more customers.  

Local business based on climate targets

– Let’s make climate protection a target and protecting the environment a competitive edge for local business activities, Markku Heinonen urges.

He believes that small local food producers would do better in public tendering if a requirement for freshness, for example, was added to the award criteria.

Heinonen gives waste management as an example: when the regions were made smaller in the tendering, employment was also found for the region’s micro-entrepreneurs.

The Lappeenranta University of Technology confirms Lappeenranta’s position as a pioneering city: among other undertakings, the innovative utilisation of waste and treatment of wastewater are expected to stimulate local business activities.

– Pilots on our home ground promote export as well as employment, Heinonen predicts.

The Director sends a special thanks to the Lappeenranta Region Environmental Office and Director Ilkka Räsänen for the work they have done to promote the Green Lappeenranta values.