Cina Aspelin Hedbring, Head of Division for International Affairs at the Swedish Environmental Research Institute - IVL, while her two-day visit to Baku within the framework of the "Nordic Talks" project which is carried out in collaboration with the embassies of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden and with support from the Nordic Council of Ministers. We present that interview to our readers and viewers.

- Madam Gina Aspelin Hedbring, welcome to Azerbaijan. I'm really excited to see you in Baku as part of the Nordic Tolks Project. You are head of the Division for International Affairs at IVL, the Swedish Environmental Research Institute. Could you elaborate on IVL's mission and vision, also the research areas that IVL works on?

- Thank you so much for having me here. I'm really looking forward to this. So the vision of IVL, which is a research institute, is a sustainable society. Our institute was founded in 1968, and very much it has been about working with applied research, making sure that the research that we do also gets implemented into society, but also get the feedback from the societies and industries on which kind of research we perform because it needs to be relevant. So a sustainable society is, of course, something that we have had as a vision for a long time. It's really what we aim for in all different perspectives, not only climate, but in environmental areas, in social sustainability, in finance discussions. And we do this, which has also been seen in our mission, with working with applied research, as I mentioned. We really want to bring science to get it into reality. We also work with trying to make environmental challenges into possibilities, to make them into something positive, but also very much focussing on making linear processes to become circular, because that's one of the key aspects that we have going ahead. When it comes to key research areas, I think there's so many challenges that we have.

Climate is one of them, but there's so many others. Just to mention a few - it's very much about the industry's transition. How can the industries become much more sustainable - one topic in that is sustainable chemistry. So all the chemicals that we produce that we need in all different aspects in our life, in our clothes, in glasses, in bottles, in water, how do we make that sustainable? How do we make sure that we don't get harmful substances in the food and in the water that we have? But industry value chains, as I said, the linear processes and making them much more circular, is also a crucial topic that we're looking into. Where are we going to get the materials from? Can we actually extract more? How are we going to extract more? Because when we extract metals and minerals, it has an implication on the environment around them. But also water. Something as easy as water. We talk about the ocean, we talk about wastewater, we talk about what we drink, and for the agriculture sector. When you talk about all these thematics areas, there's also another crucial topic, which is sustainable governance. So how do we actually run our public offices and public affairs to be able to manage this transition?

That's also an important area for us, including sustainable finance. How is the finance industry also involved in making the transition going ahead? Then I would say that one topic that we need to put more effort into is digitalization. Digitalization is seen to be a tool for the transition, but digitalization itself also has a footprint. So what does that mean for our societies? That's just a few. There's many more.

- Sweden has a focus on sustainable urban planning, promoting compact cities with efficient public transportation and green spaces. Following this Swedish model, how can cities be designed and built to be more energy-efficient, reducing their carbon footprint?

- It's a big question. It's a really interesting one. I think that there's no easy answer to that question, but there are, of course, some very good ways of approaching that. First, you need to look at what we actually have and what we actually need. When we look at when we're building something new, no matter if it's a product or if it's a city or whatever, it's always about what we actually need and how much. So we don't over-consume, build too much, or too little. How can we have an effective use of what we already have? How can we retrofit what we already have? As an example, if you have a lot of streets in your city today, which have been filled with different kinds of cars, and you want to have a more sustainable city, is it possible to convert parts of those streets to bicycle lanes or public transportation or other kinds of means of transportation? But it's also about the local context. What are the means and needs and demands of the people? And what are the surrounding areas that you need to interact with? That's also very important to consider.

Research says, though, that if you want to have sustainable societies - and we talk about sustainable, it's not only for the climate environment, but also for social sustainability - it is important to include green and blue solutions. Green spaces, the blue solutions, also the nature-based solutions. Which can act as a resilience in the city when you have storm weather, so windy or those kinds of happenings that you need to manage. And further ahead, there's always different parts, of course. But I see that today, at least in Sweden, we see there's a shift going from building big malls where people go and gather and do everything to going back to the local context. So how do we make it possible to have a local context where you don't need to travel a lot, where you can walk or take your bike? But also because that also brings you to have a more community feeling, which is good for social sustainability, again. So there's all of these different aspects. But we have seen that to include, as I said, green solution trees is very, very efficient. But also which type of trees do you put in there? Because it depends on what's happening in the city.

So to summarize it, it depends on the local context. But what do you already have and what do you need more? And really build on what's already there and what needs to be done. But then very much focusing on how to minimize transport because that's one of the large emissions that we have. So how can you incentivise people to actually use other means of transportation? Or do they really need to use transportation? And the other one is, of course, our buildings. Well, if you build a completely new building, then we have a huge impact. So back again to what we already have. How can we retrofit? How can we use it in a much more efficient way? And how can we improve the buildings we have so they don't emit a lot of heating or the cooling that we put into them? Because that's a big issue we have in the world is that we put a lot of energy into cooling and heating, but the building in itself can't keep it. So it actually slowly slips out of the building. So how can we actually isolate the buildings to keep the heat or the coolness that we want to have?

And then, of course, I think the last one, which is not the most easy one, is to engage all parts of society. When you want to build a sustainable city, you as a municipality and public officials or public affairs, it needs to be engaged. You need to set demands because the real estate actors or construction companies have different interests. If you don't put the demands, it won't be a change. So very much about how you interact and how you put demands on these changes and how you do the spatial planning in relations to that and have a discussion on it.

- Madam Helbring, I'd like to know how does IVL collaborate with other nordic countries to address the regional climate change and also to share best practices.

- Our systems are so integrated in so many different perspectives, so it's impossible for us not to cooperate, especially in the area of energy research.  But I do think there's a few different ways. One of them is that we hire people from other Nordic countries. We both have Norwegian and Danish experts especially, but also Finnish ones in our institute. We do a lot of our research projects together with organizations from these other countries, and not only nordic ones, but the European ones as well. Because we are becoming much more integrated. And then of course, we participate in different conferences and dialogues together and where we share our knowledge, our results and our ideas.

In addition to that, there is a lot of cooperation on the public level of sharing best practices and results, which is on a more long term level. So, we both have websites which are not only for the Nordic countries, but for all. Where it's easy to look at what actually in this case Sweden has been doing in terms of sustainable cities. But I would say in fact, we are using each other's competence in both hiring people and also doing projects together, also having discussions in different conferences and dialogues.

 - Sustainable society is one that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. What are the major challenges and opportunities facing Sweden in its pursuit of a sustainable society and how is the country addressing this?

- You know, that's also a very interesting question. I think that right now for Sweden, it's very much related to time. That's a very big challenge. We put up a goal of being fossil-free in 2045 and currently the actions that we're taking in Sweden are not enough to reach that goal.  So, what do we actually need to do? And that's something our institute and many others are working very much with. We do see that the industry now is taking lead. So, we haven't given up. We are still working towards that. But also, I think the main challenge is people, in one perspective, because reaching this goal demands a lot from everyone. And today it's not easy to know if you have taken the right decision from a sustainability perspective.

When you buy food, what kind of food should I buy? Should I buy something that's organic but from Spain? Or should I buy something that's not organic but from Sweden because then it's grown locally? All of these decisions, like the small ones and the big ones, it's really difficult for people to manage today. So, it's not easy to make people make a change. It needs to be easy. And I see that as the main challenge.  And the second challenge is having people actually be perseverance and stay put and continue working with this.  Sweden started waste sorting back in the 80s and everyone needs to sort their waste plastic, carbon, organic waste, glass. And it took years to have people starting to do that. But they saw the reason why they were doing it. They would see the results of why we were doing it.

But when we take actions, especially on climate, we won't see the results, not today, not in 10 years, actually in 20. Today we still see that we have, you know, increased temperature going up for many more years, even if we take actions now. And this, I think, is a challenge to how we keep on motivating people to take the right actions.

- Thank you, madam Hedbring thank you for your very insightful very interesting responses.

- Thank you.

Malak Hajiyeva

29.10.2024