“With small means you can make a big difference.”
– Support educator within LSS, City of Helsingborg

Background

The City of Helsingborg procures goods and services worth around SEK 3.4 billion every year. These purchases generate an estimated 115,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents — a significant part of the municipality’s climate impact, in an organisation with the goal of being climate neutral by 2030.

Ambitious environmental targets, an active procurement unit, and several sustainability initiatives were already in place. At the same time, it became clear that individual measures were not enough. To reach its climate goals, the municipality needed to change the way its organisations work with everyday consumption — and create structures that make it easy to do the right thing.

Challenge

How can the City of Helsingborg support its organisations in making more sustainable purchasing choices — without each unit having to reinvent the wheel?

The aim was to identify a way of working that could be widely adopted across the organisation, without requiring major investment or extensive reorganisation. There was a need for scalable, operationally focused support that could drive change in everyday practice while contributing to long-term structural improvement.

Process

1. Mobilisation and needs formulation
In spring 2023, a workshop was held together with WWF Sweden, Compare, and key people within the municipality — including purchasers, sustainability strategists, unit managers, and innovation managers. They formulated a concrete need to reduce the climate impact of the organisations’ consumption.

2. Market dialogue through RFI
A Request for Information (RFI) was published in June 2023 and actively disseminated to attract interested stakeholders. The aim was to gather ideas and map market opportunities. The responses showed considerable potential — but also that the solutions varied widely.

3. Demand Acceleration procurement in three phases
Following the market dialogue, the municipality proceeded to procure development work using the Demand Acceleration model.

4. Implementation and further development
The Demand Acceleration process resulted in the Resource-Smart Society concept, co-developed by Marla Miljödialog AB and the City of Helsingborg. The approach was introduced at seven LSS and functional support units in the City of Helsingborg in 2025, with plans to scale up — both within the City of Helsingborg and to other municipalities — in 2026.

The result: Resource-smart society

The solution consists of a coaching concept for municipal organisations that:

• Makes the climate impact of purchasing visible
• Provides concrete tools to reduce material and product use
• Contributes to an improved working environment, reduced costs, and increased quality
• Creates conditions for long-term work on resource efficiency

“We saw change immediately – both in how we thought and how we acted.”
– Head of unit, testbed operations in the City of Helsingborg