Sitowise will be one of the partners to the City of Lahti, the European Green Capital 2021. The partnership will run for the entire year and seeks to get cities, municipalities and companies to join forces to enable and implement more sustainable urban development.

Sitowise and Lahti’s partnership was announced on 30 October at a media event in Wanha Valimo. At the event, Sitowise was represented by Chief Communications and Corporate Responsibility Officer Minttu Vilander. In her speech, she stressed the importance of cooperation between companies, cities and municipalities to ensure that necessary solutions for the future are realised.

“We believe that engineers and app developers will save the world. Construction, infrastructure and transport place a heavy load on the environment, and in an urbanising world, we have a duty to be part of the solution. Both new construction and the existing built environment account for a considerable proportion of global energy consumption – about 40 per cent depending on the calculation method – and they also cause a great deal of emissions. We create code and solutions that matter, and which will help us to make Lahti and other cities even more sustainable and better places to live,” says Vilander.

In her speech, Vilander highlighted both the big and small choices that engineers and app developers make in their everyday work, and which have a major impact on sustainability. She also called attention to the vast volumes of data about the built environment that can help people to make more informed and responsible decisions in the future.

“Sustainability is smart. Smart and sustainable cities need data to make responsible decisions – data and its effective utilisation will help us hit our targets. A smart city also involves its residents, and this requires the development of a variety of digital tools for everyone to use,” says Vilander.

Lahti is the first city in Finland to be awarded the European Green Capital Award (EGCA) by the European Commission. Every year, this award is presented to a city that is a pioneer in environmental action, acts as an example to other cities, and develops innovative solutions in response to environmental challenges. Eleven European cities have received the award before Lahti, including Oslo and Stockholm.

“This is another step along the path towards our vision of being the most responsible operator in our sector: At Sitowise, we believe that cooperation between cities and companies holds the key to the solution, and that’s why we want to forge partnerships that support this. Our ability to influence the development of sustainable cities is set to increase as we network with different actors from municipalities, cities and other companies – both large and small,” says Vilander.

For further information, please contact:

Minttu Vilander, Chief Communications and Corporate Responsibility Officer
+358 (0)40 575 6660
minttu.vilander@sitowise.com

You can read more about Green Lahti on the Green Capital website: www.greenlahti.fi