Helsingborg, Sweden: Making change happen

Wherever you’re at in your change-making journey, there’s no doubt that you’re going to need a bit of help somewhere along the line. It’s safe to say you won’t be able to implement the drastic, much-needed changes our cities need without other people. And we mean all of them.

We spoke to Soraya Axelsson, first-rate innovator, change-maker, leader in the realm of urbanism, and Head of H22 at the City of Helsingborg, about the bigger picture and getting the right people on board.

Let’s set the scene…

Helsingborg: a beautiful mid-sized city in Sweden. But there’s so much more to it than just aesthetics. Through H22, the city is aiming to innovate and transform. With a 35-day expo in summer 2022 to organise, 250 ongoing initiatives, and about 70 different partners, Soraya and her team have been hard at work pulling it all together since planning began three years ago.

Helsingborg has been focusing on three main topics:

• innovative welfare and urban development,
• improving quality of life,
• reinventing city governance.

Soraya, her team, and all of the projects and initiatives supported by H22 are part of achieving the wider goal of developing a smarter and more sustainable city.

So, how are they doing it? People. Lots and lots of people. If you want to start your own city-wide, innovative drive towards a more sustainable future, people will be your greatest asset. And we thought: what better way than to learn from those who are on this path and already reaping the benefits?

Onwards and upwards

Soraya begins by telling us that the first step for H22 was deciding to do things differently and “just turning everything upside down”. Forget the conventional method of inciting change by outlining exactly what you want the outcome to be at the beginning and then finding the people to help you do so. H22 decided to just invite as many people as possible and to run the initiative like a laboratory. It was about moving towards a sustainable city and doing so in a new way. They asked themselves, “how about making this whole city a test bed, inviting people, businesses, and organisations from all over the world to be a part of developing our city?”, Soraya explains. So, they did.

Following a political decision at the highest level, they then received €25 million from a dividend from the Port of Helsingborg. This money is invested in individual projects and initiatives across the city, all trialling various ideas in the name of sustainability. It is also funding the expo in 2022.

“We believe if we really invite people to be part of developing the city, it will happen much faster, and we will achieve much more,” Soraya says.

Who to bring on board?

The real question is: who not to involve? The fundamental idea of H22 is giving people the opportunity to experiment and use the city as a laboratory for sustainable measures. So there’s really no one to leave off the list. Soraya tells us who is involved in the H22 journey:

• the city administration’s nine departments,
• all of the municipal’s partly and fully owned companies,
• local and international businesses,
• a range of associations,
• NGOs,
• local, national, and international academia,
• organisations such as the EU and UN,
• top management,
• politicians,
• change-makers and innovation leaders,
• Helsingborg’s citizens and children.

Soraya specifies that it is really important to engage those at the top. Then, of course, there’s politics. “If you don’t have the politicians with you, if you don’t have the top management with you, it can never work”, Soraya highlights. She continues by adding that you need the entire organisation on board, and the only way to do this is by offering management the services, support, and tools necessary to bring everybody in. While it might seem like an immense task, Helsingborg has proven that it’s doable.