Helsingborg is one of Europe’s most sustainable and innovative cities, awarded as such by the European Commission in the 2020 iCaptial Awards and as a finalist in the European Green Capital Award 2021. In April 2022, Helsingborg was chosen by the EU to be one of 112 Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities by 2030. In the summer of 2022, Helsingborg invited the world to H22 City Expo, a 35-day innovation fest to showcase new solutions and working methods and provide a platform for global stakeholders to co-create the smart, sustainable, and thoughtful cities of the future. Against a backdrop of culture and beauty, the expo had over 1 million visits. Helsingborg has a goal of being fossil independent by 2030. The journey is on, since 2019 all public transport runs on renewable energy, the majority of the hotels are environmentally certified hotels or has their own sustainability programs and in the last six years Helsingborg has been named as Sweden´s most environmentally friendly municipality on four occasions.

As a new member of the GDS Index we have now started our journey to a smarter and more sustainable destination within the DMO sector. A new sustainable destination strategy – Älska Helsingborg – is in the working process, where the hospitality industry are invited to participate in the work and outcome for the future Helsingborg. With a lot of collaboration within our different networks we can see new initiatives coming into projects where the ambitions are to work and communicate in a more sustainable way within the meetings and events sector.

Helsingborg’s primary challenges going forward are found within the realm of social sustainability. This involves reducing the health inequality between different socioeconomic groups, establishing a prioritised integration process for newcomers, and bolstering the perceived sense of safety and security in the city. Just a few years ago, the environmental discussion was more distinctly separated from discussions concerning social sustainability. Today we know better. We know that environment and public health are closely linked, and that social and environmental sustainability are a prerequisite for a sustainable economy in the long term. We have done a great work in Helsingborg with the accessibility of public places, streets and public premises and shops. Our Culturehouse; Dunkers is LGBTQI certified and we are also working with the purple flag process and security in the city. The area around Maria Torg is a purple flag certified area. To avoid loneliness we have special “chatcafes” and the yellow benches you can see in Helsingborg are “a friends bench”.