Stockholm, Sweden: Home of Hammarby Sjöstad, greenest neighborhood in Europe

PH: Eri Sanchez

Stockholm was the first Green City of Europe. And Hammarby Sjöstad is probably its best example of a good, sustainable city environment. Hammarby Sjöstad is an exciting new district in Stockholm where the city imposed tough environmental requirements on buildings, technical installations and the traffic environment from day one. 

The neighborhood has its own eco-friendly system for handling energy, waste
and water. Everybody who lives in Hammarby is part of an eco-cycle model that handles energy, waste, sewage, and water for homes and offices. One example is the incineration of combustible waste to produce both electricity and district heating; another is the use of waste heat from treated waste water to heat water in the district heating system.

The neighborhood now serves as an example of environmentally sustainable city development worldwide, even serving as inspiration for the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco City in China. With experiences from Hammarby Sjöstad, Stockholm is now building a new environmental profiled city district, Stockholm Royal Seaport, where holistic solutions and systematic thinking are the results of a close collaboration between governments, developers, policy makers and industry.

We recently visited Hammarby. Check out what we learned: