Malmö

Malmö is Sweden’s third largest city and the central hub for Southern Sweden. Malmö is important to Vaasa as it was the very first city to support Vaasa substantially during the hard times in the beginning of the 1940s. Therefore, Vaasa has both “Malmögården”, which today hosts a kindergarden and Malmönkatu (the street of Malmö).

Today Malmö sees itself as more than just a city. Malmö is about meetings, cutting-edge food, and innovative business, about creativity and creating experiences. It is a place where everything is reachable by bike, and where theatre, design, and diverse music rub elbows with skateparks, street art, and Michelin star restaurants.

It is a city with a diversity of languages, cultures, and religions. Almost half of the city’s population is under the age of 35 and its close to 350,000 inhabitants come from 179 different countries. And the city is growing fast. Malmö University has over 24,000 students.

Sustainability has been central to the city’s strategies for a long time and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals are now incorporated into Swedish national policy and Malmö’s own goals. Malmö has specifically picked up on the goals of Quality Education, Gender Equality, Reduced Inequalities, and Sustainable Cities.

The city is renowned for its transformation from an industrial city to a green city of knowledge and is currently ranked 7th in the Global Destination Sustainability (GDS) Index. The city is working hard to meet its 2030 goal of running entirely on renewable energy and already has the third-largest wind park in the world, powering 60,000 homes. Malmö has been awarded for being a bicycle-friendly city and has around 500 km of cycle tracks. The public transport is run on biogas which is produced from the city’s organic waste and sewage.