Espoo and Aalto University join leading group

Through local cooperation, Espoo creates and pioneers intelligent, human-oriented and scalable sustainable solutions on a global scale. 

Espoo and Aalto University have been selected for an exclusive group together with Cambridge in Great Britain, Palo Alto in the United States, Heidelberg in Germany and Noida in India to implement the UN’s sustainable development goals as a pioneer community.

The selection is a continuation of The Intelligent Community of the Year 2018 award, which Espoo was honoured with in London in June. Espoo has also been selected as a mentor city for the EU’s Digital City Challenge programme and was the most sustainable city in Europe in 2016 and 2017.

“Espoo’s best resources are its people, communities and companies. In the long term, active cooperation with various actors brings many benefits for the everyday lives of residents and the whole community in Espoo and everywhere in Finland,” says Mayor Jukka Mäkelä.

Espoo has worked persistently in order to build a sustainable future. The activities are based on a story-format strategy created with stakeholders – the Espoo Story. Key factors that have been noted worldwide include local and experimental activities with all actors of the Espoo community (Espoo Innovation Garden), opening of the city’s activities into a platform for innovation activities, and utilisation of data in a human-oriented manner in the spirit of co-creation (Make With Espoo).

“We strongly believe that common global challenges are best resolved through local innovation activities with various actors. Anything that works in small trials can be scaled up for new situations and operating environments as long as the people can be engaged in the activities,” says Director for City as a Service Development Päivi Sutinen.

Successful and scalable examples include the opening of schools and the Service Centre for co-creation as well as the refining of client data with artificial intelligence. Espoo invites its actors to join it in creating new socially, culturally, ecologically and economically sustainable solutions for future challenges.

More information/background data:

Before Espoo’s ICF award in London (in Finnish)
Press release on Espoo’s ICF award
Lou Zacharilla’s blog
Press release on 17 July 2018: Espoo to become a forerunner in the UN sustainable development goals
City of Espoo/Innovative Espoo
City of Espoo/Developing Espoo/What has been completed? / Make with Espoo product family