Webinar sparks interdisciplinary discussion on Nordic approaches to carbon-smart urban landscapes.
Why do we densify sustainable cities? How can national level politics support carbon smart landscapes? If wild nature is so important to us, why we have so little of it in our cities? These were among the questions that the speakers wanted to raise and discuss with the participants of the webinar Carbon-smart Urban Landscape that CO-CARBON organized on May 6th with the Smartland project, funded by the Strategic Research Council of Academy of Finland, and Aalto Networking Platform. You can now watch the recording of the event online.
Bringing together speakers from three different countries and an audience of more than 160 people, the webinar showed that there is indeed a keen interest among professionals to discuss carbon-smartness in the context of urban landscapes.
Participants’ answer to Seppo Junnila’s question, “Why do we densify sustainable cities?”.
The event started off with a presentation by landscape architect Ulrika Åkerlund from Boverket (Swedish National Board of Housing, Building and Planning). Her insights on livable and carbon-smart cities with ecosystem services in Sweden was followed by prof. Seppo Junnila’s talk on smart density in sustainable cities. Junnila is a Professor of Real Estate Business at Aalto university, Finland, and has also worked in numerous positions in consulting industry before joining the academy. Finally, Bjørn Ginman presented his views on Nature based solutions in the middle of Copenhagen. Ginman works as a landscape architect and project director in SLA in Copenhagen, Denmark, and specializes in landscape planning that combines climate adaptation, infrastructure, public life and a healthy and social green environment.
New European Bauhaus aims to combine beauty and sustainability
The webinar was organized as a part of European Commission’s New European Bauhaus initiative. This initiative aims to bringing the EU Green Deal to our living places and emphasizes the meaning of imagining and building a sustainable, inclusive and beautiful future. The purpose of New European Bauhaus is to design, deliver and disseminate new ideas and initiatives for a more sustainable future that brings together different professional and social realities. To support these goals, proceedings of the Carbon-smart Urban Landscape webinar will be reported to the European Commission.
Watch the webinar below or online on the Aalto University platform.