OSLO City Exchange 2022!

Sign up here to take part in this year's EdiCitNet City Exchange with Oslo, Norway.

Oslo (683,794 inhabitants), the capital of Norway and the country’s largest city, is one of the fastest growing cities in Europe. Located between the Fjord and the protected Marka, the city’s geographic boundaries prohibit urban expansion outwards. Instead, Oslo is being sculpted from within through compact urban development, increasing density in existing urban centres and creating new hubs.

In the face of rapid development, Oslo has prioritised access to clean air, clean water and green areas by means of sustainable planning such as creating new recreational areas through reopened waterways that were converted as the city grew. This enables the city to better manage storm water in the wake of more frequent and heavier rainfall, but it also provides people with new green areas and plants and animals with new habitats. Oslo is also pioneering an integrated climate financing strategy, the Climate Budget, to reach its goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 36% by 2020 and by 95% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels. The city’s commitment to ensure a sustainable and climate-neutral urban development and the preservation of its blue-green character has won Oslo the title as European Green Capital 2019.

The main goal of the Living Lab in Oslo is to pilot Edible City Solutions (ECSs) that provide social and economic value, creating opportunities for citizens and entrepreneurs through knowledge exchanges, networking, and infrastructure. The Living Lab in Oslo is run as Linderud community garden (Linderud Nærmiljøhage), an inactive local farm that was taken over by the EdiCitNet City Team in Oslo and opened to the public in 2020. The community garden itself is about 8000m2 and is situated on a historic farm, owned by a private foundation and run by a museum (MiA Museum i Akershus).

13th-15th September: Preliminary Program

Tuesday 13th: A day at the Living Lab Linderud

• Learning about the community garden and meet city team
• Possible workshops (Monitoring/toolbox by NIBIO, Diamond model by Nabolagshager, Lessons learned TBA) - the workshops can be tailor made depending on the visitors' interest
• Barbeque in the garden with a taste of the produce from the testbeds

Wednesday 14th: Learn about Sprouting Oslo

• Learn about the the municipality and other stakeholders facilitate urban agriculture
• How the city works with a strategy
• Mapping UA and tools in urban planning
• Experiences with a subsidy scheme
• Visit Europe's biggest roofgarden with lunch
• Possible workshop in the evening

Location: Agency office and around
Dinner: TBA, downtown (at own expense)

Thursday 15th: Visiting ECSIs in Oslo

• Learn from different initiatives around the city
• Community garden downtown
• Meet a city district farmer
• Visiting farm Sørli

Location: Around the city
End of visit around 3 pm