Oslo

Norway

Mission city Pilot city
Norway National Platform
Oslo Mission City Label
Population 710k
City Area 310.7 km²
City active since June 2022

Oslo is the capital of Norway, and the country’s largest city with over 700,000 inhabitants. It is a compact city surrounded by the Oslo Fjord on its south side and the national protected forest «Marka» to its east, north and west. Oslo is a city in constant growth and transformation, and is one of Europe’s fastest growing cities. 

 

A well-developed public transportation system of under- and over-ground trains, buses, trams, and boats gives easy to access to the city and its surrounding region. The city center is easily covered on foot, and city bikes and bikelanes are available throughout Oslo. The city offers great connectivity to nature. This is a central Norwegian value which underlies Oslo’s aspiration to be a green capital and its aim to become a fossil free city by 2030.  The City has a parliamentary system of governance.

 

The City Government is responsible to the City Council in the same way that the National Government is responsible to the National Parliament. The City of Oslo holds both municipal and county functions. For information on how the City of Oslo engages citizens see the commitments document, and the section on inclusive practices in the AP. Oslo has a long history of ambitious climate policies, supported by city governments from different sides of the political spectrum. In 2016 Oslo launched it’s first Climate Budget.

 

In 2020 the City’s current Climate Strategy was adopted with broad support from parties across the political spectrum. Oslo’s CCC builds directly these and other governance processes that have been closely calibrated to fit the City’s democratic and political processes.  

Key Learnings

Oslo: Building Climate Resilience through Zero-Emission Construction Sites

This case studies highlights the work of Oslo to decarbonise the construction sector. 

Climate budget: embedding cross-departmental responsibility for emissions in Oslo

Oslo was one of the first cities in the world to introduce a climate budget (CB) as an integral component of the municipal budget process. Since 2016 its annual CB has proposed a maximum emission ceiling just like the maximum economic expenditure of the fiscal budget, whose structure it shares.

Oslo Sustainable Procurement strategy

Oslo is committed to using procurement as a strategic tool to drive a transition to more sustainable production and consumption. In the decentralized procurement function this commitment is integrated at the top management level in all fifty agencies of the City of Oslo, and it is reflected in their Local Action Plans for the procurement activities. The aim is to use their market power to generate innovation and create markets for more sustainable products and services. For the City of Oslo sustainable procurement has been a prioritized area for several years. Responsible public procurement is one of the six sub-goals of the Procurement Strategy of the City of Oslo. The City is currently working on a revised Procurement Strategy that will be valid from 2017. They spend approximately 2 billion euro per year on procurement, which accounts to around 5 % of the national public procurement budget. This gives Oslo considerable buyer power and the way they use this power can make a difference. Furthermore, Oslo has been actively working to implement the Ten Principles on human rights, labour rights, environment and anti-corruption in the framework of the United Nations Global Compact since 2012. In addition, they also cooperate with other Nordic cities in a Network on Green Growth through Public Procurement financed by the Nordic Council of Ministers. Through these associations, Oslo was able to build a network through which the exchange of relevant information became possible. Author: City of Oslo, Katja Khardikova Category: City Procurement Policy Published/Created by: https://glcn-on-sp.org/cities/oslo/ Link: https://glcn-on-sp.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Publications/SP_Profiles/City_of_Oslo_GLCN_on_SP_Profile.pdf
View all Oslo Resources

Latest updates from the city

Pilot project spotlight
Read Oslo Climate City Contract

External projects

City involvement in related European initiatives