Skåne County in southern Sweden is working to reduce the region's carbon footprint. Several localities and organisations now rely solely on renewable energies for their electricity, heating and transportation needs.
Seven municipalities in the Skåne Region, in Sweden's most southern tip, are now 98% fossil free according to Johannes Elamzon, the project manager for 'fossil fuel-free municipalities in Skåne 2.0'.
Across these seven localities, "we have cut greenhouse gas emissions by 73% in the last seven years, so it is a great result," he said.
The county government together with municipal councils and several businesses have banded together to accelerate the use of biogas, wind power and hydrogen gas in a bid to become 100% fossil fuel free.
Public transport in Skåne which caters to a population of 1.3 million people became fossil fuel free in December 2018.
There is also a drive for locals to replace their older vehicles with cars that run on renewable fuels such as in the city of Lund which has developed a system granting city employees access to a fleet of green vehicles.
"These localities have over 3,000 vehicles and almost every vehicle is now fossil-free. Increasing the use of biogas to power our vehicles has been a great success" said Elamzon.
He explained that many towns in Europe can develop similar strategies to reduce their CO2 emissions and that many are already taking great steps on the path to becoming fossil-free municipalities
"We are almost done with direct fossil use and now we are putting [further] demands on the transportation system in our County and in Europe” he concluded.