“Cities are where the climate battle will be largely won or lost said UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres in a speech at the C40 World Mayors Summit. With this shared understanding, cities are taking a leading role in the transition towards more sustainable societies, with an increasing number of mayors pledging to honor the goals of the Paris Agreement and implement a sustainability agenda.

This factsheet provides insights into the importance of sustainable cities and gives some practical examples of what cities can do to become more sustainable. Cases from the following nine Swedish cities are presented: Gothenburg, Linköping, Lund, Malmö, Nacka, Örebro, Östersund, Västerås, and Vellinge. Our research project partly focuses on the role of external financing in achieving Agenda 2030, and so these cities were selected because they have issued green bonds (labeled bonds from which the proceeds are designated for green investments).