City Accelerator's three-day event to accelerate municipal actions

BSCAC at an excursion to Haltiala farm in Helsinki.

Race For The Baltic together with the Baltic Sea Challenge held The BSCAC spring event in Helsinki. The meeting gathered 10 municipalities from Sweden, Finland and Lithuania for a three-day event – to speed up eutrophication measures in their regions. Topics in focus were nutrient calculations and recycling, indicators for SDG 14 and solutions to prevent agricultural runoff: gypsum, structural liming, biochar, and wetlands. The event consisted of seven external presentations, two field trips and two workshops.

Before the event, the participating municipalities were requested to report all eutrophication measures they had done, were doing and planning and what they had achieved. This material will be analyzed, the results will be shared within the municipalities and the progress will be followed up.

Several interesting presenters came to join us at our event in Helsinki. We had a big focus on agricultural measures at farms like lime, gypsum and wood-fiber treatment. Following that, the group had a site visit to a finnish farmer who implemented numerous initiatives against eutrophication.

Furthermore, the members of the Club were invited for a detailed tour of Helsinki’s central wetland which sparked the interest of several municipalities currently planning wetlands in their districts.

After this successful Club event with great knowledge exchange, learnings and lovely company we are expecting acceleration in the municipalities’ work moving forward. We are excited for our upcoming event coming this fall, stay tuned! If your municipality is interested in joining the club please contact Julia Gerlach at julia@raceforthebaltic.com for more information.