Plussummespela hela vägen till hållbar utveckling – En studie om ”Europas grönaste stad” : Hur Internationella samarbeten driver hållbar utveckling framåt i staden. 

Sammanfattning: The environmental threat is a stressing concern which must be addressed immediately. The urbanization has been growing in a rapid pace the past years. Today, more than 50 percent of the world’s population lives in cities, and the forecast tells us that it will increase to 70 percent in 2050. This puts pressure on actors like states, organizations, companies, and municipalities who must work to meet the urbanization immediately. The UN, the EU and WWF amongst others advocates that international cooperation between these actors is the best way to go, and that cities must be prepared for the problem that occurs today and the challenges for tomorrow. In spite of this, there is no substantial research on this topic, on what international environmental cooperation between cities could mean to a city or what the results could be. Växjö is one of few Swedish cities who work internationally with local as well as global ecological sustainable development. This study intends to discover the international cooperations in the topic of environmental sustainable development in the city in Växjö. The purpose is to see what impact the international cooperations have in the environmental work of Växjö, and to see whether environmental sustainable development is being urged on by international collaborations. By using a positive–sum game as a theoretical starting point, a case–study has been conducted, where interviews were made with representatives from Växjö municipal. The result of the study shows that the effects Växjö has obtained through these cooperations, do promote environmental sustainable development. If the collaborations take the form of a positive–sum game, all actors benefit from it and the environment as well. Since the international cooperations bring exchange of knowledge and sometimes external financial means to put into different projects, the city’s environmental sustainable development improves.