The Göteborg Award honours efforts in sustainable urban planning

Friday, 20 November 2009 00:00

The Göteborg Award for Sustainable Development, widely considered equivalent to the Nobel prize for the environment, this year celebrates its 10th anniversary. The accent of this year’s awards is on the urban aspect of our planet’s environment. This is because more than half of humanity lives in towns and cities, and that figure is projected to rise to two-thirds in the next three decades
 
The 2009 winners are Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of UN-HABITAT, Enrique Peñalosa, the former Mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, and Sören Hermansen focal point for the Samsö project in Denmark. The winners will receive their prize at a prize ceremony on November 24 in Gothenburg, Sweden.
 
“We are thrilled to award our jubilee prize to these brilliant visionaries, strategists and system transformers,” says Stefan Edman, who has been Chairman of the Award Jury since its conception in 2000, in the press release.

Leading successful projects
All three winners are awarded for their efforts in finding new solutions to the challenges of reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by working for more sustainable cities and urban environments:

Hermansen is recognized for his role in making the small island of Samsö in Denmark self-sufficient through renewable energy. So far, the work has resulted in eleven land-based, and ten ocean-based, wind generators as well as a number of district heating power plants driven by burning hay or wood chips.

Peñalosa has done remarkable changes for his own country, by changing the way Bogota treated its non-driving citizens by restricting automobile use and instituting a bus rapid transit system. He has also widened and rebuilt sidewalks, created grand public spaces, and built over one hundred miles of bicycle paths.

Tibaijuka (picture) has since 2000 worked as the Executive Director of the UN-HABITAT, the world body’s human settlements program with a mandate to promote socially and environmentally sustainable cities and towns.. Under her watch, UN-HABITAT’s active role has grown significantly, leading a successful global undertaking that includes water supplies and empowering women to improve their surroundings.

The prize money of one million Swedish crowns (USD 147,000) is shared equally by the three winners. Mrs. Tibaijuka’s share of the prize money will be allocated to a global UN-HABITAT youth fund that supports young people living in slums and other sub-standard housing.
 
Read more about the award here.