By Jonas Lagander, Coompanion
Coompanion took part in this year’s Collaborative and Social Building and Living conference in Borås, Sweden, and hosted two seminars on CLTs. Together with other relevant partners, they are involved in the project “Local innovation systems around the barriers to idea-based and collaborative housing in Sweden,” focused on mission-driven and affordable homes for people in economic hardship. The project is led by the University of Gothenburg and co-funded by FORMAS — a Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development. Among other activities, they have examined how CLTs could be introduced in Sweden.
In Sweden the concept of Community Land Trust is largely unknown, but holds untapped potential. For example, CLT Brussels (one of the conference speakers) shows that housing costs in an EU-context can be reduced by around 40% using this approach. Among others, the project also hosted Lars Arell from the Swedish Government Offices in a panel discussion; he is a Senior Adviser at the Ministry of Rural Affairs and Infrastructure involved in exploring a new Swedish “egnahemsrörelse” (self build-movement, including the development of new garden cities). The CLT method works for single-family homes and rental housing alike. Therefore it could be relevant for this government investigation. Other main presenters were Axel Köpsell working with Stiftung Trias (Germany) and Britt Jurgensen from Homebaked CLT (UK).
Introducing “Markgemenskap”
At the conference the project launched the Swedish term “Markgemenskap” to more easily communicate CLTs and related forms of mission-driven, social-benefit and not-for-profit landholding. This field holds major potential for land value capture for social innovation that is currently underused in Sweden. To promote progress in this context the project found it important to have a Swedish term. A practitioner-oriented report in Swedish to support those interested in working in this area will be released before the new year.
Here is a short film on the CLT approach (US example, mostly in English) for Swedish stakeholders.
All conference seminars were recorded and will soon be available on the conference website: www.socialtbyggande.se. Some are in English, for example the presentation from CLT Brussels.
The conference is the meeting place for stakeholders of Community-Led Housing in Sweden, taking place every other year. You can find information in English about the conference here.
If someone would be interested in contacting the project you can e-mail: jonas.lagander@coompanion.se. The project ends August 2026.
What is Coompanion?
Coompanion is a Swedish nonprofit advisory organization that helps people start and grow cooperative and social enterprises. We provide free, impartial business advice, training, tools, and networking—specializing in democratic ownership, social impact models, and partnerships across public, private, and civil society. Coompanion is a federation of 25 regional Coompanion offices in Sweden.
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The video was done by John Areblad for www.socialtbyggande.se.
The pictures are from Coompanion.