Cities and Towns in the Baltic Sea Region Want To Be Smarter

BSR Programme SEED Money Facility-funded project “Baltic Sea Region Urban Forum for Smart Cities (BUF)” held its concept development workshop on 19-20 January 2014 in Tartu, Estonia. Event gathered around 40 participants representing regional cooperation organizations, municipalities, businesses and research institutions from Estonia, Latvia, Finland, Denmark and Sweden - all united in their interest of pan-Baltic cooperation and determination to develop a platform for exchanging city-oriented smart solutions.

Andres Jaadla from Rakvere presenting Smart House initiative 

First half of the workshop presented case studies of smart technologies from which Turku, Estonia and Öresund region have benefited.

City of Turku began its cooperation with Siemens in 2012, focusing on mobility and building and energy effective solutions. Projects of this strategic partnership include the evaluation report for the light rail network planned for Turku, analysis for sustainable city districts, and developing future business models enabled by the municipality.

 Tartu based company Positium uses mobile positioning to conduct studies about movement patterns in Estonia, including commuting and domestic tourism. Outcomes of the studies can influence, for example, future solutions for administrative division and revision of transport connection routes.

Öresund Smart City Hub manages cooperation between the Swedish province of Scania (Skåne) and Denmark’s major island Zealand in several areas, most prominently climate issues, accessibility and mobility and development and innovation.

After a taste of tangible achievements of their colleagues, participants of the workshop were invited to the joint discussion about concepts behind the Baltic Urban Forum and format which it would assume in the future. Most popular areas in need of “smart” solutions appeared to be energy efficiency, mobility and health and social issues. Also, participants agreed that carrying out an annual event is solely not enough – it could be supplemented with, for instance, complex surveying of municipal needs and an established mentoring system.

Agreeing on the results of joint discussion

BUF project consortium agreed on the next steps in development and elaboration of the Baltic Sea Region Urban Forum. These would be a supplementary working group meeting in Copenhagen (March), followed up by the two workshops in connection to the Energy Cities' Annual Rendezvous in Riga (April) and to the Seminar of the UBC Commissions in Örebro (May). The concept of the Baltic Sea Region Urban Forum for Smart Cities will be ready and presented in the Baltic Development Forum Summit in June 2014 in Turku, Finland.

BUF is a project initiative taken jointly by the UBC Board, Baltic Development Forum and the City of Turku, in order to prepare a concept for a “Baltic Sea Region Urban Forum for Smart Cities”.

Text and photos: Olena Zinchuk

BSR InnoShip roundtable in the Baltic Sea Day, St. Petersburg

St. Petersburg hosted the XIV International Environmental Forum “Baltic Sea Day” on the 20-22nd of March, which gathered over 600 participants from the HELCOM member countries. 

This year a lot of special attention was paid to international projects and initiatives which make input for fulfillment of international commitments. As BSR InnoShip (Baltic Sea cooperation for reducing ship and port emissions through knowledge- & innovation-based competitiveness) has had close and successful co-operation with the City of St. Petersburg in implementing the project actions, this year we had a chance to host an own roundtable session during the Baltic Sea Day.

Mr. Dmitry Frank-Kamenetsky presenting
the emission measurements around
the city of St.Petersburg

The topics discussed concentrated mostly on the main outputs of the project, presenting a cause and effect –chain. The Meteorological Institute of Finland submitted AIS-data about ship traffic and emissions collected between the years 2006-2011, from which it could easily be defined that although the traffic on the Baltic Sea is increasing, it is also highly affected by the dominant economic situation. The actual negative impacts of emissions were discussed on a Pan-Baltic level, but also more regionally by the examples from the measurements around the area of St. Petersburg. Also some new technologies for diesel engine exhaust treatment (e.g. a combined DBD reactor-catalyst assembly) were introduced.

During all discussions in both the Baltic Sea Day and BSR InnoShip roundtable it became clear, that the attitudes towards emission restrictions from shipping are still somewhat different around the Baltic Sea area. Although the IMO regulations are ratified widely, the attitudes vary from east to west – as the western part sees also possibilities in the regulations, the east is more worried about the negative economic influences and modal shift. A more explicit guidance for implementing the regulations is needed from the governmental level especially in Russia.

The St. Petersburg flood prevention facility complex

In connection to a project partner meeting, BSR InnoShip partners also had an opportunity for a site visit at the St. Petersburg Dam. The dam is originally built for protecting the city from storm surges, and it separates the Neva Bay from the rest of the Gulf of Finland. The principles of all functions were presented to us by local employees. The dam also serves other important functions, as there are numerous wastewater treatment plants around the dam for cleaning the water in Neva Bay. As one of the greatest construction projects in Russia, the sight was really impressive.

So, this time the BSR InnoShip partners had the pleasure of enjoying the Russian hospitality and had also a glimpse of the beauty of the city – St. Petersburg is definitely a place to visit!

Author: Mia Hytti, project coordinator, BSR InnoShip project

BSR network

Baltic Sea Region (BSR) is rich and diverse. For years the BSR has been analyzed to identify the success factors of the sustainable development in it. In this blog we will be raising some of the success and unsuccessful factors in the BSR in order to add more value to the region.

Network has been a key word used by many over the past years. BSR has been especially successful in creating a variety of networks. From this perspective, we could be even more dynamic and advanced then we are today. The reason for not yet reaching the most out of our existing structures is that the majority of the networks are mostly just mailing lists with very little discussion and listening between each other.

There is a saying that teams are as strong as the weakest link in them. This is also true when talking about networks. Without the true team play, the network will eventually diminish to be only a club with few members.

We want the sustainability issues to progress faster and therefore ask for active participation on all levels so that the all of our actions will bare results in our organizations. This is also the reason behind this blog!

Stella Aaltonen