“The OECD Champion Mayors for Inclusive Growth Initiative is an excellent forum for the exchange of knowledge and experience in areas of utmost importance. This is especially true when it comes to social exclusion. Keeping people from achieving their best is a great waste of resources. In the long run, exclusion destabilizes our societies. I believe an inclusive city is a city where both people and economy are growing.”
Karin Wanngård was elected as Mayor of Stockholm in September 2022. The majority she leads aims to futureproof the city as an equal, open and climate-smart city. With the residents of Stockholm at the centre of decision-making, Mayor Wanngård is determined to lead the City of Stockholm forward.
Karin Wanngård was born in Stockholm in 1975. She has a background in human resources management and entered the Stockholm City Council in 1994. She was the city’s Mayor between 2014-2018 and acted as Opposition Vice Mayor between 2018-2022.
The City of Stockholm has adopted the target to be Climate Positive by 2030. To reach this ambitious goal, reduced emissions from road traffic, work machines and shipping is not enough. To turn Stockholm in to a climate positive city, negative emissions is a necessity.
The energy utility, Stockholm Exergi, part-owned by the city of Stockholm, is on its way to installing a full-scale Bio Energy Carbon Capture facility on an already existing biofueled Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant in Stockholm. The plant will capture 800,000 tonnes/y of biogenic CO₂ from the preexisting flow of sustainable biomass. The CO2 will be permanently geologically stored beneath the seabed after ship transport to the North Sea, thereby resulting in negative emissions. The excess heat from the process will be reused as heat in the district heating network, resulting in a zero-energy loss process.
In 2021, the European Commission announced that this project, called BECCS Stockholm, has been selected as one of seven large-scale European projects that will receive funding from the EU Innovation Fund. BECCS Stockholm demonstrates the scalability of technical carbon dioxide removals, and takes measures that the IPCC has identified as necessary to limit global warming to 1.5°C.
Increased carbon storage will be a key element in achieving a green and fossil free city, where biodiversity thrives, accessibility is increased and where clean air and water, together with a toxic-free environment, promote good health.
The Mayor of Stockholm has launched a new major social inclusion project in Stockholm called Focus Järva. The idea is to turn around negative development trends in two of the city’s 13 districts. In recent years, unemployment has increased significantly, and many residents do not feel safe. The plan will merge the two city district councils of Rinkeby-Kista and Spånga-Tensta into a new one called Järva.
The Focus Järva project, coordinated by the Executive Office, is a long-term plan to invest in traffic, schools, housing, social services, recreational activities, safety and urban development to encourage growth. The intention is to strengthen cooperation between the city, other authorities and civil society.
The Mayor of Stockholm is focused on children’s’ lifelong learning. Regardless of where in the city they live, all children must have equal living conditions and life chances. Preschool educational activities and school preparation undertakings provide an important tool for more students to succeed in school and reduce the risk of exclusion.
In recognizing that successful schooling is a crucial protective mechanism, the Mayor is launching new investments in preschool education in 2023. To further strengthen the positive effects of preschool, the City Council is now transferring coordination responsibilities to a new Preschool Committee and Department.
Through a close cooperation with the city district councils, which continue to be responsible for preschool activities under municipal auspices, the city’s preschool activities will now develop even further. In the first place, the new preschool committee will coordinate and lead a city-wide quality evaluation with an emphasis on increased equality and better working conditions for staff. Second, focused investments on language development will aim to raise the quality of preschool and lay the foundation for all children’s lifelong learning. Third, the initiative will support and develop district councils’ work with skills development, outreach to increase enrolment and skills provision.