CITY COUNCIL OF HELSINKI, FINLAND

 Helsinki, the capital city of Finland, is located on the Baltic Sea coast in the southern part of the country. The city was founded in 1550 by the Swedish king Gustav Vasa, and has been the capital city since 1917, when Finland became an independent republic. Today Helsinki has about 560 000 inhabitants, and is the core area of a functional metropolitan region with about 1,2 million inhabitants. The seaside includes an archipelago of more than 300 islands, and the inland landscape surrounding the urban areas is a mosaic of rocky hills, coniferous forest, small lakes and rivers and patches of farmland. During winter months the landscape is snow-covered and the sea and lakes frozen.

Besides being the seat of governement, Helsinki is the country’s main centre of business, science, research and education as well as an important port. Helsinki’s economy is services-dominated. Main industries are telecommunication and information technology, electronics, shipbuilding, construction, food processing and printing. Tourism is a growing economic activity, with good opportunities for co-operation with nearby coastal cities of the Baltic Sea, e.g. Tallinn, St. Petersburg, Turku, Stockholm and Riga.

Enhancing sustainability has been an important task in municipal planning in Helsinki since the early 1990’s. A strategic policy towards sustainability was adopted by the City Council in 1997 and a comprehensive Sustainability Action Plan in 2002.

CORNWALL COUNTY COUNCIL, UNITED KINGDOM

 Cornwall is a rural and maritime county with a past history of mining and a population of 506,100 in 2002. It is located in the southwestern region of England. It has an area of 354,920 hectares and has over 570 km of coastline, the longest of any English county.

It is geographically isolated from the rest of Britain, with the nearest major centres approximately 125 km away at Plymouth, and 290 km away at Bristol.

Cornwall's economy is predominantly agriculture with a little over a fifth of its population living in rural areas, while a further fifth lives in villages. Cornwall earns a relatively high proportion of its GDP from three sectors - mining and quarrying; distribution, hotel and catering; and agriculture. These are all low wage value added sectors. By contrast, the county has a relatively low share in manufacturing; financial and business services, both high value added and high wage sectors.

CITY OF ANCONA, ITALY

 Ancona, the capital of the Marche Region, is enclosed and surrounded by a natural boundary, with the Adriatic Sea in the northwest, and the Monte Conero hills in the Southeast. With a population of 100,000 inhabitants, located in the centre of Italy, its main commercial activities are fishing and tourism.

The City of Ancona adopts a very active pro-environment policy with almost 20% of its territory accorded protected status. It has also embarked on a sustainable development agenda, which began in 1999 to protect its natural resources, namely its fishery and natural beauty. With the co-operation of the University of Ancona, the City of Ancona is in the process of implementing EMAS, which is an environmental management system, into the city administrative machinery to ensure the establishment of sustainable development good practices.