System innovation helps Malmö become climate neutral

The city of Malmö has already gained international recognition for its work on sustainable urban development. Now it wants to take the lead in reducing greenhouse gas emissions by investing in system innovation.

The initiative is one of several parts of the city's larger goal of becoming a climate neutral city by 2030. To speed up the transition, Malmö has decided to think in new ways, focusing on developing agile working methods and roadmaps for priority areas.

Jonas Kamleh is the process manager for climate work in the city of Malmö. Supported by a team of specialists, they work with the various transition areas across the entire organisation.

"All the actors that need to be involved must be mobilised," says Jonas Kamleh. "You only have to look at what many municipalities are struggling with today. How should what is being done at the local level be linked to what the regions are doing, and then on to the national and European levels?"

Climate work in three tracks

The City of Malmö's future climate work can be divided into three broad tracks:

1. Accelerate actions that contribute to the transition.
2. Mobilise business, civil society, Malmö residents, property owners, academics and others.
3. Create the conditions that make the transition possible.

"We focus a lot on organisational learning. This means that when we take a new step in our work, it should be based on what we have learned in the previous step. Malmö's strength is making things happen. The hard part is understanding what needs to happen", says Jonas Kamleh

Learning structures needed

Implementing system innovation on this scale requires coordination and support. That's why the Climate Neutral Malmö 2.0 project has been launched, a collaboration between the city and RISE. Magnus Johansson, senior researcher at RISE, is leading the project. He explains that the two main goals of the project are to develop roadmaps and structures for learning in the city of Malmö.

"In order to succeed in driving systematic change and development on a large scale in large parts of society, which is also facing radical electrification and expansion of energy production, there must be roadmaps and learning structures", says Magnus Johansson. "The system has to change. But as the system changes and new smart technologies are introduced, there must be people who can use them. Learning must therefore take place in parallel."

Process support prevents knowledge loss

But large organisations can be difficult to manage. To ensure that knowledge is not lost, RISE experts move up and down the organisation to support different processes.

"We do not change what works well in the municipal organisation, but strengthen the new ways of working. How can a municipality become more agile within the democratic system – that is the challenge. It's a journey you have to take and feel your way through," says Magnus Johansson, and continues:

"It is a strength that the city has traditionally worked creatively with urban development. There is a lot of potential here to do exciting things. Malmö is big enough to be dynamic, but small enough that all the players in the city, whether it's the university, the companies or the region, can easily work together. Then there is great potential."