Interview with Karsten Nielsen

Re-Building Europe (RBE): Mr. Nielsen, it’s a pleasure to have you with us. Copenhagen is regarded as one of the most innovative cities in terms of sustainability and urban development. Your climate plan goes until 2025 – what happens after that? 

Karsten Nielsen (KN): The next climate plan will aim at 2035 and will have a much wider perspective. The current plan looked at where emissions are coming from within the perimeters of the city. The 2035 plan will look at the emissions caused by people living in the city – when they travel, eat, build, renovate and move. This calls for new measures and a different approach to planning the city and to building. Aspects like whether to repurpose on old building or build a new one. If more people can live in the city closer to mobility, they don’t need as many cars as when living in the countryside. But it is important to have very close cooperation with private developers because they make up at least 80 to 90% of what is built here, and we have to find a way of imposing government policy. At the moment we don’t have great legal tools to do that.

Some people say you need to build a lot of small apartments in one place and then people will take up less space and be close to infrastructure. But it doesn’t always work that way because a lot of people like their cars – and people who live in small flats tend to buy summer houses outside the city – and then they need a vehicle, which also leaves a footprint. So doing the right planning to encourage people to have smaller carbon footprint is complex – and we need to look into it.

RBE: So do you think densification is a way to reduce carbon emissions?

KN: I’m a bit unsure. It makes sense initially. But people in the city tend to have higher incomes, so they consume more and go on more holidays – and flying results in very high emissions. So you have to take a holistic approach. I am not sure that densification alone is the answer.

Integrated Urban Solutions (IUS):For the last two decades or so, Copenhagen has been internationally romanticized as a city with a waterfront and happy people, with cars being replaced by bicycles and pedestrians. So as you said, you need a more holistic approach. How do you interact with developers to find solutions to suit all population groups?

KN: Climate Plan 2025 has been very good in that it gave everyone a common goal to strive for. But the problem is that you also get a bit narrow-minded once you have your strategy, because as we go along, we learn more about climate issues. We have come to the conclusion that the problem is no longer the city’s emissions, but the footprint that the Copenhageners leave. Addressing that will be part of the next plan, but it makes sense to stick to the current plan. Changing mid-plan would be politically problematic.

We have already been interacting with developers and creating partnerships as part of the current plan, especially when it comes to energy efficiency. We have gathered a group of developers and facility managers who together look after some 28% of office and residential space in Copenhagen, some 13 million square meters. They share information and strive to be more efficient in running their buildings. We also need closer interaction with citizens to develop sustainable strategy – they must be on board. Politicians like snap decisions and see something change, but we need to leave some scope for citizens. We have already decided to set up a citizen assembly solely on climate issues. You probably know these principles from the OECD, and we have already had one successful short citizen assembly on the future of Copenhagen’s inner city. Now we will conduct one on climate change over at least three years. We are also working with the Green Building Council of Denmark, who are responsible for German DGNB certification. We apply this to our own buildings and buildings we support, like social housing. We chose DGNB because it supports all three aspects of sustainability – economic, social and climate. But we want to put more emphasis on climate issues using tools accepted by the business community and private developers so that we speak their language.

RBE: You mentioned before that when people live in a city, they like to have their summer houses in the country. And I assume that COVID also caused a lot of changes. So how can we repopulate the city? In Paris we asked the question because a lot of people want to work remotely and shop online. Do you even need to live in the city? What makes the city attractive?

KN: Well, I can't speak for all European cities and it’s still early days after the COVID, but I think the changes are due not to COVID, but to economic growth. Housing in Copenhagen is expensive even though we are expanding the city by land reclamation – we’re building a new island in the harbor where 35,000 people will live. In the 1960s and 1970s, young families would move out of the city to buy a larger house. Then apartments got bigger and the young people stayed. But now, they can’t afford to stay in the city and are leaving. That will have a much greater influence on development. Copenhagen has a  left-wing leaning assembly – and it doesn’t want to see the city become a place for the elite only. They want a mixed city for everyone, including nurses and police officers, as well as CEOs and so forth. With every generation people get more and more educated and the interesting jobs – with bigger incomes – are in the city. And bigger cities mean mobility problems because infrastructure doesn’t develop at the same speed as the city grows.

RBE: People’s need change faster than the buildings and infrastructure. How do you merge those timelines?

KN: We don’t have the answer to that – but we try. People forget that the biggest part of the city is the existing city. What we add on in the form of developments are small adjustments over time. People say we have to build apartments for students, but most students share apartments for the first two or three years of their studies and are happy with that. Then perhaps they find their own flat. And young people don’t want to live on the outskirts. “Water will always find its way.” We adapt. Priority one is “Can I afford it?” Priority two is whether there is an outside area I can use. All the other aspects like architecture and so on are way down the list of priorities when people decide on housing… that’s why the politicians need to be interested in this.

IUS: It’s interesting that you mention ‘speaking their language’. In most cities in which we work there is traditional conflict between – I'm exaggerating on purpose now – the greedy investor, the hypercritical resident, the highly creative architect and the engineer who is only concerned with their technical solution. Have you managed to find language to speak to all of them and integrate them into the process? There are enough talented architects, economists, engineers and money in most of our European cities. So what is the problem? I believe that international exchange and pilot and flagship projects are important. Flagship projects bring knowledge back to our cities. What is the importance of these flagship projects that get global visibility?

KN: Flagship projects are important in every field. We need somebody to test the boundaries and show new ways of thinking. We need flagship projects from time to time to push the boundaries. But you must never lose sight of the fact that the volume is in non-flagship projects. That is where you need to focus.. But there are always some who would like to leave a legacy. There are a lot of them who are now into the greener agenda, for the right reasons. In meetings, everyone has something to say about green and sustainabilityThere are some who say things like “Why do we build with so much concrete? Can’t we use wood or clay or whatever?” Those are the people you want to form an alliance with. And from that you can grow. Start speaking the language that people who build from the spreadsheet will understand. But it takes preparation to find the ‘burning platform’ and the right allies so that you can expand – and get the big volume you need to address climate.

IUS: I’d like to pick up on your comment about scaling being important. People come to Zurich to look at cooperative housing flagship projects, but then on the outskirts of Zurich, square kilometers have been constructed with ‘non-flagship’ projects.

RBE: You also said you have no strong rules or regulations, so you need collaboration with investors. Do you believe that ESG helps make sustainability scalable? I also believe flagship projects are important, but how are we going to scale? And do you believe that ESG and taxonomy have been important instruments in achieving sustainability?

KN: The EU taxonomy is part of the conversation now. But the European Union needs to accommodate the opinions of 27 countries. It is always good to have a common language on the European level and have a basic standard. But if we don’t get it right in the next 4 or 5 years, then we are too late for the 1.5-degree goal. We need to move faster in the individual countries and especially in the cities. So I would not simply discard what is happening at the EU level, but it is not moving fast enough.

RBE: I believe that’s where we need the spreadsheet guys. Flagships are nice and they show that it can be done, but to achieve radical change on a big scale, you need everyone on board. What is the language they speak? And how can you motivate them?

IUS: Have we figured out a new archetype of homosapiens, the spreadsheet guy J?

KN: If you go back thirty or forty years, people were starting to build wind turbines, and everybody thought they were crazy. And they needed a lot of government subsidies to keep the industry alive. But they argued that we would need to rely on them in the future. And they were proved right… eventually. And it’s similar with buildings. We cannot continue using only concrete and we need to find better ways to build, with a smaller carbon footprint. There is a business opportunity here, because soon the rest of the world will be asking for this. But I am not sure when people will start asking for a sustainable apartments or houses. Because the priorities are still how many rooms? What’s the price? Can my kid attend school nearby? And does it have a balcony?

RBE: Yes, but energy prices are one indicator, aren’t they?

KN: Yes, right now in Copenhagen a lot of enterprises are looking for office spaces. They want sustainable buildings or buildings with a smaller footprint and greater energy efficiency because it’s part of their reporting and part of their image. I am less sure about how you make these changes with residential – maybe through the investors who sublet.

RBE: How do you picture Copenhagen in general? Will there be more new buildings, or are you doing a lot of refurbishments?

KN: The politicians would like to see more and more buildings renovated or transformed. And fewer new buildings. But the dilemma is that they want to build housing so that they can meet demand so that prices don’t go up too much and police officers, nurses and so on are still able to live in the city. But I can see a future where we become much better at having a more regional approach to this. Right now the individual municipalities are on their own here: They do their planning; we do ours. But one million people live just outside Copenhagen in different local authorities. So we need much greater regional cooperation.

RBE: Is verticality a solution for that?

IUS: We talk about horizontality, right? But regional services do not stop at the administrative border of a city. Our planning instruments are still focused on administrative districts. It’s very fragmented. So on the one hand we have to go vertical to preserve the hinterlands and decrease the footprint, at least physically. But on the other hand, we have to go horizontal and interconnect these planning instruments and realities. That’s what we learned about Basel last year. Urban planning there is an international affair because the metropolitan area is located in Germany, France and Switzerland, and even in different Swiss cantons. So I think your notion of horizontal cooperation is very interesting. It would be great you could explore that in the workshop in Copenhagen.

KN: There are lot of opportunities with going vertical. The former Carlsberg brewery site in Copenhagen is being redeveloped with nine high-rises. The politicians are now a bit hesitant about what they decided on a decade ago. There are two main problems. One is that there is a lot of interest in preserving historical buildings in the city. The council decided to ban high-rises near the historic inner city of Copenhagen because it would spoil the cityscape. So there’s a conflict between heritage and new buildings. And the other part of the dilemma is that when you build vertical, it’s because you want as many people living in the city as possible. But that’s to the detriment of new neighborhoods outside the city. And new developments need to form their own identity – they need a shopping precinct, a church, a school and so forth. So there’s a debate about whether you should create new history outside the city, or should you push everything inside the city limits? And even if you do build vertically, people still want parks, schools and sports facilities. It’s simply difficult to fit it all in. Added to which a lot of private developers say that it’s simply too expensive to go vertical.

RBE: That’s the business case. Back to the spreadsheet guys.

KN: When we started Carlsberg ten years ago, it was in the aftermath of the financial crisis and there was a lot of hope. But now, developers say they cannot finance a building like that. They cannot go above 40 meters or so without having a very difficult business case.
RBE: Also, I assume there will be social inequalities in those high-rise buildings, depending on whether people live at the top or the bottom. That’s where architects and designers have to find the right approaches.

KN: City architecture is part of my division here. We don't have a problem with high-rises from an architectural point of view. We are more concerned about what it does to a city. From a very narrow perspective, it might be good to have more people living in a confined space. But they move in and become part of a bigger economy. They start traveling more. They will have summer houses. So is their footprint smaller in the end? I haven’t seen full coverage of this issue. I have only seen it from a more narrow perspective.

IUS: That’s like the cycle of pro and contra high-rise in Switzerland. And now the higher costs of construction materials will make it even more difficult.

RBE: Should we reduce urbanization for sustainability reasons?

KN: We should encourage urbanization, but you have to bear in mind that when more people live in the city, they will also have summer houses. They need more mobility – perhaps even flying. And with a higher income, they will consume more. So we don’t yet know how that balances out.

RBE: What is your wish for the Copenhagen workshop? What should we tackle? Who is the audience?

KN: I think we need to look at planning as an instrument and what it can it do to combat climate change. I would like to see it being addressed and have different thoughts presented, but it would be asking too much to come up with a solution. The more perspectives you can get on the table the better. We know a lot about the footprint of building. We know that wood is better than concrete and so forth. But we need to look at planning as an instrument to tackle climate change.

IUS: It would be great if you could tailor the workshop so that international visitors can contribute some of their experiences.

KN: In Denmark we have a project called Plan 22+. It’s supported by a foundation called Realdania. And they are just starting a project looking into this planning instrument. Their work is mainly based on the Danish experience, but perhaps they would be interested in getting more international perspectives and more inspiration. They could be an interesting partner for you to look into this.

RBE: We should definitely invite them. Perhaps to give a keynote. We also plan to have like cities panels from different Nordic cities coming together. I believe can learn a lot from the Nordics. That’s why we decided that Rebuilding Europe will travel every year to one of the most innovative parts of Europe in terms of city planning, urban planning, and sustainability.

KN: Perhaps you could also reach out Malmö. They also have some interesting ideas when it comes to climate and planning and building and so on.