ENRIQUE PEÑALOSA

Colombia

The winner of WIN WIN Gothenburg Sustainability Award 2009 on the theme Sustainable Urbanisation was Enrique Peñalosa together with Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka and Søren Hermansen.

Each one comes from a separate continent and they are, locally and globally, knowledgeable, engaged and impatient doers. They are ambassadors for one of the most decisive factors for humanity – the battle for sustainable development in the cities and towns around the globe. These urban environments are already home to half the people in the world, they represent 75 percent of all energy consumption and generate 80 percent of all greenhouse gases. The problems are extremely complex and require urgent but long-term stable solutions.

Enrique Peñalosa from Colombia and Mayor of Bogotá between the years 1998-2001, successfully transformed Colombia’s capital – one of the planet’s most chaotic urban environments with its slums and smog – into a model of sustainable, democratic city planning.

 Enrique Peñalosa reformed mass transit, primarily through “TransMilenio”, a modern, efficient bus-based transit system. He also initiated the construction of the world’s most extended bicycle path system and further developed the popular “ciclovia”, which shuts off vehicles from long stretches of roads every Sunday between 7 a.m. and 2 p.m.. Both projects aimed at promoting pedestrian and bicycle traffic. Peñalosa's visions and strategies for more sustainable urban environments have traveled around the world as he has held lectures in a great number of countries on how to create good and liveable cities.