SUPERBS
Sustainable Urban Patterns around the Baltic Sea
INDIVIDUAL MODEL SITE: Turku, Finland

Environmental management

Main issues

  1. Local Agenda 21
  2. Environmental management and municipal audit
  3. Urban-rural interaction and biodiversity
Site description
Turku/Åbo is located on the shore of the Baltic Sea in South-West Finland. Surrounding Åbo are some 50 municipalities. These are all very small, down to a few hundred inhabitants, except for the city of Turku, with 165.000 inhabitants and an area of 306 km2. The whole area covers 407 km2 and has a population of 220.000. The region includes a part of the coast of the Baltic Sea, with the beautiful Åboensic archipelago. Turku is a very old cultural centre in Finland, in fact its oldest city. Its economic life is mostly centred around service and trade. Important is also the three universities and the archiepiscopal site.

Model description
The local agenda 21 work, established in many forms in Turku region during the last few years, concentrates on four main topics; transport, water, environmental education and environmental information. Individual municipalities in Turku region have many encouraging examples of how to promote sustainable development in the local level. The city tries to find projects where many municipalities can take part. These include, waste water treatment in rural areas, energy savings, alternative energy sources and more intensive co-operation between consumers and producers of energy.
The cities of Turku and Pori will carry out environmental audits. The main idea is to give the local decision makers an outside look at the environmental performance in their city and help them in future work. The audit will consider the state of the environment of the city, the data collection system and analysis of the environmental performance in municipal departments and plants, like waste water treatment plant. The auditing process will use the UBC Environmental Audit manual, developed to suit Baltic cities, EMAS or ISO approaches.

A new compost plant, in which all the sewage water from the city will be treated, will distribute the humus back to countryside for farmers to use as an fertiliser and soil improvement material in their fields. Improvement of the quality of the sludge during last few years has made the recovering process possible. Factories loading the sewage system with heavy metals and other pollutants have been inspected and obliged to improve their practises. E.g. all the dentist reception facilities were checked and now separates amalgam from their waste water. This had a dramatic positive effect to the amount of mercury in the sludge. The city will start to compost kitchen waste from households and restaurants to increase the recycling of nutrient from waste to reuse.

CONTACT
Mikko Jokinen, Director of planning
City Hall
Mikko Jokinen, Director of planning and environment
Kristiinankatu 1, FIN-20 100 Turku, Finland
Tel +358-2-262 3412 Fax +358-2-230 3518
mikko.jokinen@gw.turku.fi

Bjorn Grönhlm, Politcal Magister
Åbo Akademi University
Institute of Political Science
Henrikinkatu 1 b
FIN-20 500 Turku/Åbo, Finland
Tel +358-2-215 41 25, Fax +358-2-215 4711
bgronhol@abo.fi

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