Keynote Speakers

Marcus Hedblom

Photo: Fredrik Funk

 

Marcus Hedblom is professor in Landscape management at SLU. His research focus on urban green areas and how to manage and plan them so that both humans and biodiversity can thrive. He is a landscape ecologist and nature conservationist by training but is now working in the field of landscape architecture. For a shorter period of time he also worked as a planner for urban green in Uppsala municipality.

 

Johan Rehngren

Photo: Lo Birgersson

Johan Rehngren works as City Head Gardener at the City of Gothenburg in Sweden. He is responsible for Gothenburg’s green plan and other governing documents that focus on urban greenery and public space, and is also overall responsible for the design of public spaces. He has a background working as a landscape architect in both private and public sector with planning and design of urban environments.
 

Kirsten Lund Andersen

Kirsten Lund Andersen - Landscape architect graduated from Copenhagen University in 1993. She has since worked in municipalities to incorporate the green agenda in a holistic way. All based on the landscape, nature, data and not least how people use nature and the offers and facilities included in the task portfolio of municipalities - including partnerships with other municipal operators, public and private stakeholders. And how to translate it both methodical and systematical for the benefit of the profession and people in general.

Laura Walin

Photo:Photo: Veera Saari/ECHA

Laura Walin has worked as Head of Unit Environmental Protection for the City of Helsinki since September 2020. The unit is responsible for coordination of environmental management in the city, environmental statistics and reporting, coordination of air quality and noise abatement plans as well as the biodiversity and circular economy action plans, and environmental awareness and education. Before joining the City of Helsinki organisation she worked 12 years in various tasks at the European Chemical Agency, and before that she has worked in academia, science communication and science administration. 
 

Leena Kopperoinen

Leena Kopperoinen works as Senior Researcher and Head of Land Use and Urbanisation Unit at the Finnish Environment Institute’s Biodiversity Centre. Her background is in geography and environmental sciences. Kopperoinen has a long track in research on blue-green infrastructure, ecosystem services and social-ecological systems with a special interest in spatial planning and citizen science. She is keen on developing spatially-explicit methodologies to enhance sustainability in different scales and human well-being by building on the services provided by nature while simultaneously protecting and enhancing biodiversity. Recently, she has actively developed urban and municipal ecosystem accounting as well as studied how the urban greening targets of the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030 could be best achieved. She has participated and is also currently involved in several international research projects and has led several national research projects related to practical spatial planning processes both in regional and local level.

Cecil Konijnendijk van den Bosch

Cecil has over 25 years of experience studying, teaching, and advising on aspects of urban forestry and nature-based solutions. He has lived and worked in Europe, Asia, and North America. Cecil helped found the leading academic journal Urban Forestry & Urban Greening and edited seminal textbooks such as The Routledge Handbook of Urban Forestry. He is passionate about using trees and nature to develop better cities, and always stresses the importance of building meaningful relationships between people and places. He has advised international organisations such as the United Nations, as well as national and local governments in more than 30 countries. From Barcelona Cecil co-directs the Nature Based Solutions Institute, a think tank for the evidence-based greening of our cities. He is also an honorary professor of urban forestry at the University of British Columbia.

 

Hanna Ahlström Isacson

Hanna works as a landscape architect at Urbio with sustainable landscape projects in different scales and phases, as well as with various research- and development projects regarding ecosystem services and nature-based solutions together with different collaboration partners. This by including ecosystem services and other important aspects that contribute to long-term functioning solutions for sustainable, attractive and pleasant environments that promote human health and well-being. By combining practice and research, Hanna has collected a vast knowledge and experience about ecosystem services and nature-based solutions. Through her experience in this fields, Hanna is an appreciated specialist, lecturer and inspirer on these issues. Hanna’s ambition is to contribute to the exchange of knowledge and experience between theory and practice to get further and faster towards greener, healthier and more resilient cities and urban areas. To make knowledge available and understandable for everyone working with urban areas in different scales and phases. To do so – Hanna has among other research projects run the work with Nordic toolboxes for ecosystem services, where different tools for the conservation and development of ecosystem services in the built environment is presented.

Helena Bjarnegård

Photo: Hanna Franzén/FotoFranzén

Helena Bjarnegård is Sweden's national architect. She is leading the work within the field of architecture nationally, providing a structure that supports those planning and building in Sweden to create well-designed towns and cities. The responsibility of the national architect is to embody the vision of the Swedish government´s national policy for architecture, art and culture heritage to create more sustainable, equal living environments, now and in the future.
The national architect is also the chair of the Council for Sustainable Cities, a group that brings together the directors of a unique mix of government authorities whose work is affected by questions of design and environmental sustainability.