This report is based on a scoping exercise that identified and analysed agricultural mitigation measures that are adoptable under Swedish conditions and for which sufficient evidence exists for their operationalization in the Viable Cities Finance (VCF) Dashboard, a tool for municipal climate action and investment panning. An outcome of the scoping exercise is the parameter selection of the dashboard, which is a subsequent step in the tool’s development.
For selecting parameters for the VCF Dashboard, the report addresses the following research questions: Which mitigation measures can be adopted in Sweden? What are their mitigation potentials, costs and benefits? The analysis combined peer-reviewed scientific literature with Swedish grey literature in a structured evidence synthesis. This mixed evidence base was necessary due to the report’s objective of identifying technically robust mitigation measures, assessing their adoptability in a Swedish context and examining their relevance for municipal climate investment planning.
In total, we reviewed and coded 35 publications. For each measure, we extracted information on mitigation potential, implementation feasibility and constraints, and costs and economic considerations, as well as co-benefits and trade-offs.
The report presents various measures across four categories: soil management, livestock management, manure management, and machinery and vehicles. The findings show that Sweden has the possibility to implement and scale most of the measures, but the binding constraints are often implementation conditions, including policy coherence, stable incentives, coordination across actors, and the distribution of costs and risks, rather than a lack of ideas or technologies.
Among the four categories, soil and manure management offer the strongest near-term mitigation potential, while livestock management carries the highest uncertainty because of the system-level scalability as well as dependence on behavioural and cultural change that is difficult to predict. The next step will be to translate measures into inputs that are ready for the VCF Dashboard and accompanying guidance for municipal users.
