In Finland, eco-citizens rewarded

To encourage eco-citizens behavior, the Finnish city of Lahti offers rewards to its’ residents if they reduce their CO2 emissions.

A city highly dependent on the car

Lathi Bay at night (source: City of Lathi)

On average, a resident of Lahti, a city of 120,000 inhabitants, emits the equivalent of 21 kilograms of CO2 per week.

“Lahti is still a very car-dependent city. Our goal is that by 2030, more than 50% of all journeys will be made using sustainable modes of transport,” explains project manager Anna Huttunen.

This is why Mayor Jyrki Myllyvirta introduced the “CitiCap” initiative in her city. The application gives each participant a weekly carbon budget, based on his or her personal situation. It detects whether the citizen travels by car, public transport, on foot or by bicycle and deducts his or her carbon emissions. If this quota is not used up when it expires, it is transformed into “virtual euros” that can be exchanged for swimming pool tickets, bus tickets, or a slice of cake in a city bakery.

The application and the city are challenging users to reduce their emissions by a quarter, i.e. to replace an average of 20 km of driving by car with the equivalent in public transport or cycling. Participating “eco-citizens” are volunteers, so there is no question of imposing the application on the entire city.

An initiative supported by Europe

The concept is primarily inspired by the European system of the emission allowance market. Here, it is governments and companies that have quotas. Rather than cakes or swimming pool entries, CO2 under-consumers can sell their excess allowances to over-consumers.

Citicap is moreover partly financed by the European Union. The application, therefore, complies with European regulations on the protection of personal data. Indeed, it requires a lot of data (geolocation, travel habits…), but this data will remain confidential and will never be shared with third parties.

A promising start

The initiative only dates from June 2020. A few months later, 2000 inhabitants downloaded the application, representing 16.7% of Lahti’s population. The creators of the application are therefore still unable to assess the concrete effects of the initiative on municipal pollution.

Yet Citicap has generated a wave of enthusiasm at several levels. The municipality plans to build a 2.5 km bicycle path to help change habits. Besides, Lahti will be the “European Green Capital” in 2021.

Finally, according to the project manager, “CitiCap has generated a lot of interest around the world, not only in Europe but also in the United States and Canada”.  Enough to motivate the inhabitants of Lahti to take their bikes and sneakers.

Sources : Le Journal de Montréal, Urban Inovation Action 

Cover photograph : Free_Photos/Pixabay

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