Sustainable cities: lessons from a Swedish community-level initiative

The 'Sustainable Hökarängen' project utilized an action-research approach to promote resource-efficient lifestyles in a residential district of Stockholm. Key findings emphasize that engagement is most effective when activities are social and enjoyable—such as communal gardening and climate-smart cooking—rather than focused on areas where residents have limited control, such as apartment energy use. The project successfully established a network of 'Sustainability Ambassadors' and local movements like HOPP! to ensure continuity. While a parallel investment programme by Stockholmshem reduced heating energy use by over 30% per square metre, the community-level project found that social cohesion and peer interaction were primary drivers of behavioral change. The brief concludes that evaluating such initiatives requires a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods and long-term follow-up to determine if behavioral changes are sustained.

• The project found that engagement was most successful when activities were social and enjoyable, whereas topics involving significant personal sacrifice or limited individual control were poor entry points.
• A network of 'Sustainability Ambassadors' was created to act as local change agents and inspire neighbors, contributing to the formation of the local movement 'Hökarängen Transition and Permaculture Project (HOPP!)'.
• Social cohesion and the desire for social interaction were often as important as, or more important than, the sustainability topics themselves in motivating participation.
• A parallel energy-efficiency investment programme implemented by Stockholmshem in residential buildings in Hökarängen reduced heating energy use by more than 30% per square metre compared to 2007 levels.
• To ensure activities continued after the project ended, the team focused on building capacity and structures, such as a power tool pool and a cargo bicycle pool.
• The project's evaluation suggests that a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods is necessary to measure behavior change, and that long-term follow-up (up to 10 years) is recommended to assess sustainability of these changes.

APA

Axelsson, K. (2016). Sustainable cities: lessons from a Swedish community-level initiative. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/NEW/SEI-PB-2016-Hokarangen-web.pdf

Chicago

Axelsson, Katarina. Sustainable cities: lessons from a Swedish community-level initiative. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2016. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/NEW/SEI-PB-2016-Hokarangen-web.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Axelsson |first1=Katarina |title=Sustainable cities: lessons from a Swedish community-level initiative |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |date=2016 |url=https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/NEW/SEI-PB-2016-Hokarangen-web.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{axelsson2016sustainable, author = {Axelsson, Katarina}, title = {{Sustainable cities: lessons from a Swedish community-level initiative}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2016}, url = {https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/NEW/SEI-PB-2016-Hokarangen-web.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }