Tampere

Finland

Mission city Pilot city
National Mission Ecosystem Finland
Tampere Mission City Label
Population 260k
City Area 90.3 km²
City active since June 2022

The City of Tampere has a very strong foundation for its climate work. Tampere started its systematic work to mitigate climate change in 2010. Since then, Tampere has been one of the national forerunner-cities in climate change mitigation and adaptation in Finland.

 

The results have been quite remarkable. City’s main guiding tool for climate work is the biennially updated “Tampere Carbon Neutrality Roadmap 2030”. The roadmap contains a comprehensive set of measures defined in cooperation with city’s units and its subsidiaries. The roadmap also includes impact assessment for a wide variety of actions, including both emission reduction and cost estimates. The progress of climate work is monitored in the Climate Watch and the Climate Budget, which transparently communicate the city’s climate work to citizens, politicians, private sector and other stakeholders.

 

Tampere has already reduced climate emissions from a 1990 baseline more than 30 % in absolute numbers and more than 50 % per capita. According to current action and projections, the roadmap can take us to 73 % reduction, when the target is - 80 % by 2030. As the results obtained so far indicate, the low hanging fruit to enhance climate change mitigation have been picked. Tampere has already successfully invested in renewable energy and the public transport system. At the time being the very difficult systemic challenges remain to be solved. The most difficult of them is the reduction of GHG emissions from transport. This will require a mix of systematic work jointly with the citizens, private sector and the authorities.

Key Learnings

Co-designing a Mindshift for Sustainable Mobility - Tampere pilot activity

Mobility Mindshift motivates young people to engage with sustainable mobility now and into adulthood — working with local universities, secondary schools, and teachers through speculative design workshops, youth mobility surveys, and a peer ambassador network. Year 1 reached 120 students across four schools, collected 753 survey responses, and established an ambassador network of 20+ members aged 16-55. The biggest insight from Year 1 reframed the project's core challenge: young people already move sustainably. The real challenge is maintaining that behaviour into adulthood and helping them connect mobility choices to broader lifestyle decisions. This shifted the focus from changing current behaviour to building lasting mindsets.

Governance Innovation and Implementation in the Cities Mission: Anticipatory Governance in City Climate Planning and Policy

This report examines how four European Mission cities Umeå, Tampere, Valencia, and Parma are integrating anticipatory governance approaches into their climate planning to better navigate uncertainties while pursuing climate neutrality. As participants in both the EU Climate- Neutral and Smart Cities Mission and the Adaptation Mission, these cities are developing innovative strategies to enhance resilience and adaptability in their climate transition work. Anticipatory governance encompasses forward-looking approaches that help cities prepare for multiple possible futures rather than simply reacting to events as they occur. The report highlights three key components of anticipatory governance that cities are implementing to varying degrees: Strategic foresight and scenario planning: Developing plausible future scenarios to test the robustness of climate strategies under different conditions. Risk and vulnerability assessment: Identifying and evaluating potential hazards and vulnerabilities, and assessing how planned climate actions might be affected by future disruptions. Adaptive management: Establishing flexible governance structures with monitoring systems, trigger points, and contingency plans that allow for course corrections as conditions change. The comparative analysis reveals that while all four cities have developed comprehensive frameworks to guide their climate action, they are at different stages of maturity in implementing anticipatory governance practices. All cities have conducted risk and barriers assessments as part of their Climate City Contract (CCC) development, primarily focusing on economic, financial, and social risks. However, more complex risks such as geopolitical disruptions or systemic cascading effects are not yet fully integrated into planning processes. Key findings include: Scenario-based approaches are embedded in all cities' climate planning, though with varying degrees of sophistication and application. While monitoring processes are well-developed across all cities, formal adaptive management practices are not yet common. All cities face similar challenges: limited human and financial resources, data gaps and reliability issues, communication difficulties, and institutional fragmentation. Cities are increasingly recognizing the value of integrating forward-looking approaches (more traditionally associated with climate adaptation) into mitigation planning to build more resilient transition pathways. The report identifies several opportunities for enhancing anticipatory governance: Establishing more robust adaptive governance structures with clear review mechanisms and trigger points Developing methods to identify "no-regret" climate mitigation actions that remain viable across multiple future scenarios Implementing diverse and complementary solutions rather than relying on singular strategies Strengthening cooperation across cities and multi-level governance to share knowledge and expertise

Climate Budgeting webinar - 21 October 2025

As Mission Cities work toward their climate neutrality goals through the implementation of their Climate City Contracts, climate budgeting is becoming an increasingly important governance tool. It enables cities to integrate climate considerations into decision-making across all departments while aligning with available financial resources. Many cities have already adopted the governance model of climate budgeting, by putting climate at the top of the political agenda, ensuring that all the relevant emitting city sectors, contribute to delivering on targets. Since climate budgeting can be adapted to any local city context or scale, this webinar, hosted by NetZeroCities, C40 Cities and Climate-4-CAST: • Shortly presents a clear framework of what is meant by “climate budgeting” • Shares practical examples from cities that have already adopted climate budgeting within their municipalities, including the lessons learned for a successful approach. • Enables dedicated discussions in different climate budgeting approaches, with likeminded cities. Featuring practical examples from Oslo, Uppsala, Tampere and Paris.  📂Presentation slides  Additionally, here are also some materials shared by the organising partners to deep dive into climate budgeting:    The C40 Step-by-step guide to climate budgeting provides practical guidance focusing on the governance aspects on how a city can introduce, develop and implement climate budgeting, including measures on mitigation and adaptation as well as equity considerations. The step-by-step guide is complemented by the more technical C40 Handbook on GHG emissions quantification for climate budgeting which provides guidance on how cities can quantify GHG emissions to inform their climate budgeting analysis. The C40 Climate Budgeting Framework outlines principles and criteria to guide cities in developing, implementing, and adopting a credible and robust climate budgeting process in line with C40’s 2030 Leadership Standards. The climate budgeting online courses for government leaders and practitioners are self-paced and interactive with a combination of theoretical and practical approaches that supports cities in building capacity to embed climate budgeting into their existing governance systems. The Climate Budget training for local authorities, offered by the Climate-4-CAST project.  Climate 4-Cast project webpage and CADS tool.   

Leveraging Foresight and Anticipatory Governance in Cities’ Climate Action

Climate action in cities requires tackling multiple crises simultaneously and systemically: ecological crisis and biodiversity loss, pandemics, mental and physical health challenges, new trade realities and fragile supply chains, migration and changing population demographics, technological development, and economic uncertainty.  In this rapidly changing world, it is necessary to make actions for climate change mitigation and emission reduction more adaptive so they can steer towards long-term goals despite uncertainty. This requires understanding the future your city wants and anticipating different potential futures pathways towards it.  While humans have always speculated about the future, the formalisation of futures thinking as a discipline emerged in the mid-20th century, particularly in the context of post-war technological and geopolitical uncertainty. It has since developed an academic grounding, making futures thinking a recognised field of inquiry that employs rigorous methodologies. It has also moved beyond its early association with elite institutions and large corporations, and is now routinely used by national governments, international organisations, and at the local level.  Foresight and anticipation approaches help cities to navigate the complexity and uncertainty in climate transition.  Foresight is a systematic way of thinking about the future(s) with a view to influence its course of development. Anticipatory climate governance refers to the governance system - structures, processes, methods, capacities, cultures, mindsets, strategies - that are used in a certain context (e.g. a city government or ecosystem) to steer and act towards a desired future for the climate and nature, including the ability to do so adaptively over time. Extending anticipation from adaptation to mitigation In cities’ climate work, future-orientedness is unevenly distributed:  In adaptation work, future-oriented approaches are inherently present as cities are constantly preparing for the consequences of the changing climate. For example, cities have developed established practices and expertise in assessing climate risks, conducting vulnerability assessments and building adaptation strategies. In mitigation work, future-oriented approaches and tools are less present. Although cities’ climate roadmaps typically describe pathways towards carbon neutrality which can involve scenario work, these roadmaps tend to be descriptions of pathways for reaching maximum emission reductions in optimal situations, rather than connecting closely to actions today. The assumptions behind pathways, and the related uncertainties, are in many cases not scrutinised in detail. Technical, political, economic, societal and other enabling conditions and the uncertainty related with all of them may receive little attention. Building future-oriented action: methods and use cases There is always pressure to focus only on the loudest problems with the most urgent short-term deadlines. But to tackle complex problems like the climate crisis, we need to recognise the connections between our current actions and the future they are working towards, and reflect on how we may want that to change. Foresight can help you with questions you have such as:  “What could happen in the future?” “What would we like to happen in the future?” “What are the consequences of our actions (for our city)?” “How can we get to our desired future?” “What does this mean for the long-term?” “How can we prepare for the unexpected and stay on our path? There are various foresight and anticipation methods cities can leverage for their climate actions, depending on their need. These include Horizon scanning, Futures table, Scenario building, Backcasting, Three Horizons, the Futures wheel, and more.  However, individual methods always need to be applied consciously within a process or context. These methods can be used to serve different purposes, but some use cases for applying foresight and anticipation methods in the mitigation action include:  Vision-setting: For cities wanting to align the city around a common vision and goals. Foresight-driven roadmaps: For cities wanting to ensure actions will steer towards long-term goals. Adaptive planning: For cities wanting to understand how to steer action over time. Citizen Co-creation and Storytelling: For cities wanting to ensure their residents are part of the transition. To learn more about methods and use cases, including resources to apply them, read the NetZeroCities guidebook on Building Adaptive Climate Action in Cities via Anticipatory Climate Governance.  Learning from Mission Cities The NetZeroCities project conducted a study of four European cities on how they use foresight and anticipation in their cities’ climate change mitigation and which barriers and opportunities they identified in adopting foresight-oriented approaches. The cities analysed were Tampere (Finland), Umeå (Sweden), Valencia (Spain), and Parma (Italy). The research of the four case study cities was conducted in 2024–2025. Here are some shared takeaways the four cities:  Application of anticipatory governance in city level planning is emerging as an important area of development and capacity building.  However, these approaches are not institutionalised, and cities were in the process of establishing or grounding anticipatory climate governance practices in their work.   Anticipatory governance has the potential to assist cities in better navigating and preparing for potential challenges and disruptions while planning future development. The cities express interest in developing and implementing more sophisticated adaptive planning methods and tools to enhance their climate work. The cities highlighted constraints in human, financial, and time resources as barriers to implementing anticipatory governance effectively.  For more information, please read the case study report at the NetZeroCities knowledge repository.  Starting today… Anticipatory Climate Governance recognises that the most impactful use of foresight is beyond methods and isolated use cases. A city that has embraced an anticipatory approach to its climate work doesn’t only utilise it in a single project, process, initiative, or engagement. Instead, it weaves anticipation methods, culture, and mindsets throughout its work and structure, creating a city that can adapt in the present to steer towards the future.  This kind of city isn’t built in a day. And many cities are already practicing anticipation - whether it is called that or is being used only in some places. Although Anticipatory Climate Governance is an opportunity beyond only using a single specific method, this is often a starting point for getting to grips with applying foresight in reality. We suggest that this should then lead to investigating other aspects of an anticipatory approach in climate work.  To learn more about how you can start today - from the methods and use cases above, to other simple practices and reflection questions that can help you start this journey - see the NetZeroCities guidebook on Building Adaptive Climate Action in Cities via Anticipatory Climate Governance.

Governance Innovation and Implementation in the Cities Mission: Anticipatory Governance in City Climate Planning and Policy

This report examines how four European Mission cities Umeå, Tampere, Valencia, and Parma are integrating anticipatory governance approaches into their climate planning to better navigate uncertainties while pursuing climate neutrality. As participants in both the EU Climate- Neutral and Smart Cities Mission and the Adaptation Mission, these cities are developing innovative strategies to enhance resilience and adaptability in their climate transition work. Anticipatory governance encompasses forward-looking approaches that help cities prepare for multiple possible futures rather than simply reacting to events as they occur. The report highlights three key components of anticipatory governance that cities are implementing to varying degrees: Strategic foresight and scenario planning: Developing plausible future scenarios to test the robustness of climate strategies under different conditions. Risk and vulnerability assessment: Identifying and evaluating potential hazards and vulnerabilities, and assessing how planned climate actions might be affected by future disruptions. Adaptive management: Establishing flexible governance structures with monitoring systems, trigger points, and contingency plans that allow for course corrections as conditions change. The comparative analysis reveals that while all four cities have developed comprehensive frameworks to guide their climate action, they are at different stages of maturity in implementing anticipatory governance practices. All cities have conducted risk and barriers assessments as part of their Climate City Contract (CCC) development, primarily focusing on economic, financial, and social risks. However, more complex risks such as geopolitical disruptions or systemic cascading effects are not yet fully integrated into planning processes. Key findings include: Scenario-based approaches are embedded in all cities' climate planning, though with varying degrees of sophistication and application. While monitoring processes are well-developed across all cities, formal adaptive management practices are not yet common. All cities face similar challenges: limited human and financial resources, data gaps and reliability issues, communication difficulties, and institutional fragmentation. Cities are increasingly recognizing the value of integrating forward-looking approaches (more traditionally associated with climate adaptation) into mitigation planning to build more resilient transition pathways. The report identifies several opportunities for enhancing anticipatory governance: Establishing more robust adaptive governance structures with clear review mechanisms and trigger points Developing methods to identify "no-regret" climate mitigation actions that remain viable across multiple future scenarios Implementing diverse and complementary solutions rather than relying on singular strategies Strengthening cooperation across cities and multi-level governance to share knowledge and expertise
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Latest updates from the city

Pilot project spotlight
Visit Tampere City Website Read Tampere Climate City Contract Limerick City Profile (Twin City)

External projects

City involvement in related European initiatives