Sveriges Ekokommuner

ABOUT SVERIGES EKOKOMMUNER

History
The eco-municipality concept was first introduced in 1980 by the Finnish authority, Suomussalmi, and was brought into Sweden in 1983 when the Övertorneå local council decided to adopt the concept.

As the eco-municipality model spread to various cities and towns throughout Sweden, a network was created as a way of providing support and assistance to cities and towns undertaking ecological community planning.

The organisation was formalised in 1995 and took on the name “Sveriges Ekokommuner” (SEkom), in English “The National Association of Swedish Eco-municipalities”.

Purpose
The guiding principle of SEkom is to encourage development towards a more sustainable society, where the we have a sound environment while at the same time, people have a high quality of life.

The main purpose of SEkom is to provide a forum and a meeting place where politicians and municipal employees can exchange information and learn from each others successes and failures. The information exchange occurs through the SEkom website, courses and the annual conference.

In addition, municipalities can use SEkom’s 12 green indicators to compare themselves to other municipalities.

Organisation
Currently, the network consists of 79 municipalities, which add up to about 27 percent of the municipalities in Sweden. SEkom has a political board consisting of nine politicians the member municipalities. Once a

year, one of the politicians is elected chairman of the network.
The head office is situated in Karlskrona, a city in the South East of Sweden, see under "Kontakt" to the right. A committee of civil servants serves the political board.

Membership
In order to become an eco-municipality and join the network, the municipal council or the executive committee must pass a resolution to apply for membership. The local authority must also adopt a strategic plan and program for achieving local sustainability that is in line with the four systems conditions outlined in the Natural Step Framework.

These are:
In a sustainable society, nature is not subject to systematically increasing…
1 ...concentrations of substances extracted from the Earth’s crust
2 …concentrations of substances produced by society
3 …degradation by physical means
And in that society…
4 …human needs are met worldwide

Finally, the political resolution to apply for membership must be submitted to the organisation’s head office along with the adopted plan for addressing environmental and sustainability issues.

Green Indicators
SEkom has developed 12 environmental indicators that were officially adopted in 2002. The purpose of these indicators is to monitor the development in eco-municipalities.
>>Green indicators