Gothenburg: Sweden’s second city has some serious green credentials
- From botanical gardens to the country’s only preserved Viking ship, there is much to explore
- A fairground ride that pumps electricity into the national grid shows its commitment to the environment
I have always loved fairground rides but Loke, which sends me skywards, high over leafy Gothenburg, is a first. Not because it’s the fastest or the highest but because, as this pendulum-like ride propels thrill-seekers through the air, its powerful deceleration generates electricity, which is fed into Sweden’s national grid. And it’s not the Liseberg theme park’s only nod to sustainability. Six of its restaurants are MSC (Marine Stewardship Council) certified.
Often overshadowed by Stockholm, the capital, Gothenburg – ranked the world’s most sustainable city by the Global Destination Sustainability Index in 2016, 2017 and 2018 – has an independent streak and a passion for innovation and adaptability. That is perhaps because of its past, the city having twice been burned to the ground, first in 1611, courtesy of the Danes, and then in the 1700s, when a series of fires – most of which started on the riverbanks, where wealthy traders had built timber mansions – prompted the government to decree that only stone houses could be built inside the moat encircling the city centre. Not that you’d know.
Haga Nygata, a pedestrianised street in the Haga neighbourhood, is lined with buildings constructed in the traditional landshövdingehus style, with a stone lower floor and wooden upper floors, which allowed builders to bypass the restrictions. Highlights of this neighbourhood include Café Husaren, famous for its enormous cinnamon buns and 19th century glass ceiling, and Café Kringlan, with its painted crockery, floral wallpaper and home-made cakes, piled high on a wooden cart propped outside.
There are plenty of reasons to head further afield, one being the Gothenburg Botanical Garden, just outside the city centre. The 16,000 species of plants here include Sweden’s largest collection of orchids and a rare Easter Island tree, now extinct in its homeland. I discover two pigs snuffling around an area being cleared of roots; there’s not a bottle of weed killer in sight – the animals have been employed for their munching abilities. They’ve been on-site for less than a day and have already chomped through a tangle of undergrowth.
The gardens hold other surprises. After noticing hinges on an information board about bees, I open it to find a hive, installed to highlight the importance of pollination. A Japanese glade recently hosted a hanami picnic, held beneath cherry blossoms in full bloom. And in the nearby rockery, carpeted with alpine plants, rare species abound. A staff member explains that the botanical garden is regularly sent plants from areas in which they’re struggling. The Gothenburg gardeners cultivate the seeds and send back batches of healthy, thriving specimens in the hope of boosting their chances of survival.
The gardens are free to enter, which reflects another priority in Sweden’s second city: accessibility. Another case in point is Gothenburg’s newest public sauna. The Frihamnen sauna was built in 2015, in Jubileumsparken, a once-neglected park being spruced up for Gothenburg’s 400th anniversary, in 2021. With its artfully rusted exterior and backdrop of dockyard cranes, it bears no resemblance to any sauna I’ve seen before, but step inside and you’re hit by that familiar scent of hot wood and wave of heat.
Outside is a beautiful, curving shower block made from 12,000 glass bottles. There’s no admission fee, although, during winter, when demand is at its highest, visitors must book ahead to secure one of the 20 hour-long slots. Assuaging fears Frihamnen would be a flop, on its opening day, 20,000 people tried to book a place.
It’s not the only space being repurposed. Lindholmen Street Food and Design Market, on a sprawling industrial estate on the other side of the Göta älv river, is an erstwhile warehouse now filled with produce stalls and bars, and surrounded by beer garden-style seating and vintage trailers transformed into miniature restaurants. A diverse mixture of local chefs and artists showcase their talents within. After purchasing a food voucher (65 krona/HK$53 buys one main course), customers can chow down on everything from pork belly quesadillas to spare rib burgers, and afterwards pick up some art or get a tattoo.
None of this requires a visit to an ATM, Gothenburg being one of the world’s least cash-dependent cities. About 75 per cent of retail payments are cashless, and many restaurants and stores take cards only. A Sweden-based technology upstart recently gave new meaning to the term “spending a penny” by switching pay-per-use public toilets and showers to a cashless payment system, and the homeless sellers of newspaper Faktum carry card readers.
Visitors can do their bit for the environment. A message in my room at the Scandic Europa asks guests to let housekeeping know if they would like their room cleaned (highlighting the energy and water required to service 456 rooms every day), and the hotel joined forces with Swedish waste-food company Karma to create a menu of cocktails made with unused fare from the breakfast buffet. You can rest assured they don’t come with a plastic swizzle stick.
For those who do not indulge in alcohol, cobbled-together cocktails or any other kind, most of Gothenburg’s restaurants, shops and cafes possess huge, self-dispensing water containers alongside signs encouraging customers to help themselves. Rooftop gardens are a common feature of the city’s restaurants, too, and the Upper House hotel even has beehives.
On Vallgatan, alongside some of the city’s oldest buildings and more examples of the landshövdingehus style, is Gothenburg-based Nudie Jeans’ flagship store. The clothing brand is a member of the Fair Wear Foundation, which partners with companies providing safe, well-paid employment. Its highly sought-after organic cotton jeans can be repaired for free, in-store, and its shirts are produced in India by a non-governmental organisation that supports sustainable cotton farming. Jackets are made with vegetable-tanned leather and shopping bags from FSC-certified paper.
There are more ethically reassuring retail opportunities at nearby Fram Ekolivs, one of several plastic-free supermarkets in the city, customers filling paper bags with grains and nuts scooped from huge sacks, and herbs and spices from pic ’n’ mix-style dispensers.
If it’s tourist activities you’re after, though, do not fear – there are plenty. Sweden’s only preserved Viking ship, on display at the Museum of Gothenburg, is spectacular; if you clamber to the base of the hilltop Skansen Kronan fortress, you’ll get wonderful views over the city; and the Universeum science museum, with its huge aquarium and 18,000 cubic metres of humid rainforest, is impressive in scale.
But as I pedal through the city courtesy of the Styr & Ställ bike-share scheme, passing other travellers on rented electric scooters and trams (the entire bus fleet will also, it is planned, be electrified by 2030), it is Gothenburg’s approach to sustainability that leaves the biggest impression. And, for once, that impression is not a large, carbon footprint-shaped one.
