Achieving Helsinki’s sustainable development goals requires looking at the big picture instead of the individual goals.
Helsinki emphasises sustainable growth in its strategy. This means growth that is not only consistent with ecological considerations, but also creates socially, financially and culturally sustainable well-being.
The key sustainability goals of the current 2021–2025 strategy period have been the prevention of segregation, ambitious climate responsibility and nature conservation, the development of the city’s comfort and vitality, and the improvement of productivity and the availability of labour.
The City is also committed to advancing the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, of which there are 17, ranging from the eradication of poverty to peaceful societies.
Helsinki’s sustainability work is becoming increasingly systematic both in terms of its management and practical everyday efforts. Our management and staff have increased their knowledge and competence thanks to training and communication.
The City monitors the progress of its sustainable development goals and publishes a sustainable development review every other year. The latest review was published in May 2025.
Helsinki is a pioneer in many areas of sustainable development, but there is still plenty of work to be done, as pointed out by Heidi Huvila, Virpi Vuori and Tapio Kumpula.
Huvila works for the Urban Environment Division as a development specialist in sustainability, Vuori works for the Social Services, Health Care and Rescue Services Division as a senior environmental specialist and Kumpula works for the City Executive Office as a senior sustainability advisor.
All three are also part of the City’s sustainable development working group, the tasks of which include facilitating the City’s cross-administrative cooperation to promote sustainable development goals.
Sustainable development goals are not new to the City of Helsinki. In fact, Helsinki has a long tradition in sustainability, but sustainability goals and legislation are constantly evolving. Because of this, responding to the sustainability transformation requires active effort and constant new measures.
The City has also carried out sustainability work in practice by reducing emissions from energy production and transport, establishing new nature reserves, enhancing efforts to prevent segregation and expanding the reach of its services to various population groups.
Sustainability is also taken into account in the City's procurements. They have a real impact, as the City’s annual procurements total approximately five billion euros.
Huvila, Vuori and Kumpula emphasise that there are no shortcuts to achieving sustainable development goals; the only way to achieve them is through persistent effort.
A relatively new aspect of the City’s sustainability work is the focus on the big picture instead of individual goals. One example of this is the Urban Environment Division’s aim of showing how sustainability goals are realised in practice when proposals submitted to decision-making are accompanied by a sustainability assessment.
Another example is the examination of the City’s own programmes and plans using SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) analysis, which makes it possible to identify cross-links between goals. At the same time, this analysis reveals which goals each programme and plan contributes to or, in some cases, which they hinder.
During the current strategy period, the City has paid particular attention to potential conflicts between sustainability goals in the development of the city.
As an example, Huvila highlights construction. As a result of urbanisation, more and more people are constantly moving to Helsinki and other growth centres in search of work. To accommodate them, the City is building new housing and has annual targets for housing construction. The aim is to secure affordable and high-quality housing for residents and to prevent segregation through urban infill, for example.
However, housing construction may conflict with other goals, such as the preservation of local nature and carbon sinks, which are also part of sustainability.
What is needed, then, is the ability to examine each plan, proposal and decision based on a number of different variables.
“We cannot blindly promote any individual goal. Instead, we must be able to understand the impacts of each goal on other goals and on the whole,” Huvila mentions.
In practice, there are no areas of the City’s operations that sustainability goals are not relevant to. Sustainability is part of land use policy, education, increasing recreational opportunities, elderly care and occupational safety alike.
“The City has been working persistently for a long time, and there aren’t really any new tricks to it. Instead, we have been able to create a framework with which we can spot the conflicts between individual goals and hopefully address them in a timely manner,” Huvila mentions.
It is the responsibility of the City to highlight not only sustainability goals, but their consequences as well.
Huvila, Vuori and Kumpula emphasise that there are many value issues to resolve. The discussion concerning these issues must be transparent. It is the task of the City’s administrative apparatus to share information so that this discussion can be carried out based on facts.
The City’s information services have long time series of data. This data also helps to see how the City has succeeded in developing its sustainable development work.
Vuori points out that data also helps determine what kinds of decisions and actions have the greatest impacts and how negative impacts can be minimised as effectively as possible.
A sustainable future will not be built with individual programmes or the actions of the City alone. Recognising this, it is important for Helsinki to also get residents involved in its planning and solutions.
Kumpula points out that cities have the potential to be drivers of sustainable development. After all, most sustainable development goals are implemented at the local level. Helsinki has been one of the top cities in Europe in incorporating sustainable development goals into its strategy and operations.
“Cities and municipalities have a great responsibility and plenty of opportunities to promote sustainability, be it through land use planning that preserves biodiversity, the provision of high-quality education or infrastructure that affects the state of the seas,” Kumpula says.
How has the City succeeded during its current strategy period?
The latest review of the sustainability work carried out during the current strategy period states that signals of the progress of the sustainability transformation are reflected, among other things, in how cross-cutting the work to promote sustainable development goals is.
This has required active communication and training on the sustainable development goals so that all City personnel understand what sustainability means in their own work.
Text and photos: Kirsi Riipinen