In 2015, the UN member countries agreed upon a set of goals and an agenda for sustainable development. The Agenda 2030 aims for sustainable development that affords equal consideration to the environment, economy and people.

As regards the actual implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a significant share will be conducted at the local level. Cities will play an important role in ensuring the successful achievement of the goals. In other words, the cities will be the ones to transform the goals from items on an agenda to concrete measures. Having committed to the Agenda 2030 SDGs, Helsinki has initiated city-level reporting on sustainable development for the second time now. This time around, the objective of the reporting is to view the SDGs in more detail than last time.

The report, which will be completed in May 2021, emphasises concrete actions and aims to identify development themes as well as issues highlighted by the coronavirus pandemic. The end goal is for the city to be able to recover from the crisis in a sustainable manner.

In addition to all of the City’s division, some Helsinki City Group enterprises will be participating in the reporting efforts. City residents and interest groups are also hoped to be involved in the examination of sustainable development.

The reporting process and the sustainable development report itself are intended to benefit the preparation of the Helsinki City Strategy for the following council term, as well as future projects and programmes.

“Helsinki was the second city in the world to commit to the local sustainable development reporting model created by the City of New York. Alongside New York and a host of other partners, we have worked since 2018 to promote the extensive global adoption of the reporting scheme. So far, more than 200 cities from all over the world have joined the efforts. The overall aims of the arrangement are not limited to producing a report and instead extend to achieving the Agenda 2030 goals and establishing the role of cities as builders of a better world. In this context, local implementation reporting conducted on a voluntary basis will serve as our common language,” says Mayor Jan Vapaavuori.

Helsinki’s first sustainable development report ‘From Agenda to Action – The Implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals in Helsinki 2019’ was published in June 2019 and submitted to the UN in July 2019.

Signals from Helsinki – Sustainable Solutions

Helsinki’s first sustainable development report: From Agenda to Action – The Implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals in Helsinki 2019 PDF