8,900 trees planted for the 2018 financial year

Hafnarfjörður carbon-offsets the municipality's operations, the first of Icelandic municipalities. 

The City of Hafnarfjörður today signed an agreement with Kolvið for the carbon offsetting of its operations. The project covers all of the municipality's institutions, around 70 in total. At the beginning of the year, the City of Hafnarfjörður entered into an agreement with the company Klappir Grænar lausnir hf. for the implementation of an environmental management software system that compiles important information from its operations into a carbon account, including total consumption of hot water, electricity and oil. These factors have the greatest impact on the municipality's carbon footprint, along with waste collection.

The figures for the 2018 financial year are now available, and this agreement concerns the carbon offsetting for 2018, with the understanding that the City of Hafnarfjörður's operations will be carbon-offset going forward. „We at Kolvið welcome the partnership on carbon offsetting with the City of Hafnarfjörður, which with this step truly demonstrates social responsibility in action. There are many aspects of local authority operations that release carbon dioxide which need to be reduced and carbon-offset, just as the City of Hafnarfjörður is now doing,“ says Reynir Kristinsson, Chairman of Kolviður.

^{Mayor Rósa Guðbjartsdóttir and Reynir Kristinsson, chairman of Kolviður, here sign an agreement on the municipality's carbon offsetting.}

According to the 2018 carbon accounting for the Municipality of Hafnarfjörður, the carbon footprint of the municipality's operations was around 890 tonnes of carbon dioxide, equivalent to the carbon sequestration of planting 8,900 trees. At the same time, the municipality is working hard to implement measures aimed at reducing its carbon footprint for the future, which are set out in its environmental and resource policy published in May 2018. The City of Hafnarfjörður has for some time placed great emphasis on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in its operations.

„We are very aware of the responsibility for climate issues that rests on us as a local authority. Our municipality is large and growing, and it is our obvious duty to take this step and thereby encourage other municipalities, government agencies and businesses to do the same. This agreement marks a milestone for the municipality. We must be a positive example in this matter and immediately do everything we can to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible. We have been working proactively and systematically to reduce our carbon footprint and will continue to do so without hesitation.“ says Rósa Guðbjartsdóttir, Mayor of Hafnarfjörður, at the signing of an agreement this morning, which took place at the Hafnarfjörður Forestry Association.