Half the size of Belfast, Lahti, Finland, is a former industrial city which fell on hard times as heavy (and dirty) old industries bit the dust, leaving in their wake the most polluted lake in the country and an economy on its knees. 

Fast forward 30 years from that virtual collapse — epitomised by chronic joblessness — and the blue-collar town, one hour north of the capital Helsinki, finds itself feted as a fast-growing hub of innovation proudly bearing the title of European Green Capital.

Behind that transformation lies an engaged citizenry which rose to the challenge of forging a green new deal and a First Citizen who has made the environment his raison d’être.

For Mayor Pekka Timonen, set to begin his second four-year term shortly, the push to make Lahti Europe's greenest city goes hand-in-hand with its economic rebirth. 

In its commitment to cleaning the city, Lahti has been something of a green giant: In 2009, the city, with an annual budget of around €1bn, bid farewell to coal-fired energy. Since 1990, the city's greenhouse gas emissions have been slashed by 70 per cent. Astonishingly, it is on course to be carbon neutral by 2025. (The generally-accepted target for European cities to be net zero is 2050.) And where 50 per cent of its waste went to landfill in 2007, that figure should be just one per cent by 2022. 

But it's in the transformation of its polluted Lake Vesijärvi, once a poster boy for all the environmental evils that heavy industry could wreak, that Lahti has earned its environmental stripes. "30 years ago, this was the most-polluted lake in Europe," Mayor Timonen, who will speak at the EmTech Europe conference in Belfast on 1 July, told belfastmedia.com. "Today, you can swim and fish in the lake and if you want you could drink from it. We now have the lake at the level of cleanliness and freshness it enjoyed in 1910. Our next target is to push back to the century before that."

Going green is the business of everyone in Lahti with positive messages on tackling climate change being championed by both its premier-league Pelicans ice hockey team, and its award-winning symphony orchestra — as well as by your everyday Nikolas and Nélia. The city's official European Green Capital website makes no bones about the need for everyone to pitch in: "We want everyone to participate in creating the green city! In Lahti, the residents actively participate in sustainable urban development, and together we make our city even more pleasant and functional."

"Everyone gets behind our green goals," said Mayor Timonen. "The first climate change speech was made in the Council in 1997, the first targets were set in 2009. The lessons are clear from our journey: you have to set ambitious targets but you also have to start doing things which make a difference. This is very much a people's movement. In fact, it starts in the schools because then the children teach the parents the importance of biodiversity and of respecting the environment."

UNITED MESSAGE: Mayor Timonen
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UNITED MESSAGE: Mayor Timonen

Lahti's green transformation has generated other benefits — two years ago the first new university in Finland in four decades set up shop there, burnishing the Mayor's bid to remake the city as a highly-skilled, knowledge economy. 

But for Mayor Timonen, the journey is far from over. "We want to move Lahti from being seen as a provincial, mid-size city to being internationally recognised as a gateway city to the new, green, future Finland," he says.

Mayor Pekka Timonen will take part in a virtual conversation with Honorary Consul General of Finland in Belfast and CEO of Staffline Ireland, Tina McKenzie, at the EmTech Europe conference coming from Titanic Belfast on 1 July.