City of Malmö

Role in project: Participant in WPs 2, 4, 5, 7 & 8

The City of Malmö in southern Sweden has a population of almost 300,000 and a municipal workforce of about 20,000. The city’s responsibilities include education and elderly care in which food is a major cost and an increasingly important element of activity. Through the food and climate change programme in the city, there is a major drive to convert the school meals service to 100% organic and to adapt the menus further to decrease climate impact. A new sustainable food policy currently under development proposes decreases of climate effect of all food in the city by 40% from 2002 levels by 2020. This will demand a dramatic new approach to all food purchasing in the city and will necessitate new and innovative partnerships. The new growth and development strategy also under development is significantly shifting development growth inwards to create a more compact city, and thereby opening new opportunities for peri-urban development of a more agricultural and recreational nature. There is a strong political commitment in the city to be the world leader in sustainable development, and Malmö is often already hailed as one of the leading cities. Food is becoming an increasingly central part of this strategy.

Profile of staff members working on the project: Gunilla Andersson holds an MSc in Agricultural Sciences. She is a project manager for strategic sustainability issues connected with food production and consumption in the City of Malmö. She has been working with organic food for over twenty years, first as an inspector for organic certification and then eight years as the CEO of Organic Marketing Centre an NGO promoting organic food to both the public and private sector. Helen Nilsson has an MSc in Environmental Policy and Management. She is a project officer with the City of Malmö working on sustainabiliy issues connected with food production and consumption. She has nearly 10 years of research experience in sustainable food and energy production, with a focus on local food systems.