The Global Commons Alliance engaged with key city officials and stakeholders to understand their interest and starting point for their cities to live within Safe and Just Boundaries.  A workshop was convened (jointly by GCA and Copenhagen city) to explore what it might take for each city to support decision-makers to move this forward.

This resulted in a joint commitment to develop a program led by the group of cities – Copenhagen, Helsinki and Oslo – in collaboration with the Global Commons Alliance, including many of its partners.

The long-term vision of the program is that the cities’ fair shares of the Earth system are integrated into urban planning and economic decision-making, supported by citizen engagement so that the direction of development is truly sustainable and citizens experience benefits from this development.

The vision aligns well with the ambition of the Nordic countries, adopted by the Nordic Council of Ministers in 2019, to become “the most sustainable and integrated region of the world” by 2030. It is envisaged that additional cities from the region will join this group in the coming years.

It is significant that the Nordic cities, representing high consuming societies are the first to explore living within the Safe and Just Earth system boundaries. We intend to nurture a portfolio of initiatives like this, including cities and landscape partnerships in other regions, to enable knowledge exchange and learning globally on what it takes to safeguard the global commons.