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Dec 2025
Sweden is tackling one of the green transition’s toughest challenges: how to speed up complex projects without sacrificing trust, quality, or legal certainty. With the Acceleration Office, and in close dialogue with Danish experiences in digital governance, Sweden is testing a new model for faster, more predictable public-sector decision-making.
As ambitions for the green transition intensify, the challenge is increasingly one of execution. Renewable energy projects, industrial expansions, and grid upgrades all depend on efficient decision-making and predictable processes.
In Sweden, these questions have gained new national attention, prompting the government to establish a dedicated institution to strengthen coordination: the Acceleration Office.
“It has been clear for many years that we need to shorten project timelines. Processes have become more complex, and the world is moving faster. We needed a new way of working that reflects that reality,” says Kristina Alvendal, former Vice Mayor of Stockholm and now one of two national industry coordinators at the Acceleration Office.
The office was established with a clear goal: to streamline, accelerate, and make more predictable public-sector decision-making, particularly for green industrial projects central to Sweden’s competitiveness and sustainability ambitions.
Sweden’s public administration is widely respected for its independence, transparency, and legal robustness. But these strengths also mean that authorities often work autonomously, with differing interpretations and procedures. When disagreements arise, it can be challenging for stakeholders to navigate.
“When two authorities see things differently, the process can become lengthy. And companies, municipalities, and investors may find it difficult to know how to move forward,” Alvendal says.
She explains that this is not about disagreement in principle, but about the practical reality of navigating parallel interpretations and parallel procedures.
“When you’re a company trying to build something important, you shouldn’t have to act as the mediator between authorities. We need a system where the public sector resolves those questions internally, so the energy and focus of companies can stay on developing projects, not managing processes,” she adds.
Permits related to electricity grids, renewable installations, industrial operations, or environmental requirements, therefore, require careful coordination, and timelines can vary. For businesses making large-scale, long-term investments, clarity and predictability are essential.
The Acceleration Office aims to support exactly that. With a mandate running until December 2026, the Office functions as a national problem-solving unit, bringing together authorities, municipalities, and companies to identify solutions, streamline coordination, and identify opportunities for structural improvements.
Unlike traditional commissions that focus solely on long-term analysis, the Office operates in real time, handling current cases while informing future policy and regulatory development.
Much of Sweden’s permitting complexity is structural, but Alvendal emphasises that digitalisation can play a significant role in creating clarity and efficiency.
Sweden is highly digitally mature in everyday life, and citizens and businesses use digital services extensively. Yet many public-sector processes still involve manual workflows and paper-based steps.
“People in Sweden are very digital in their daily lives,” she says and adds, “But when engaging with authorities, you may still encounter analogue processes. There is a great opportunity to align these worlds more closely.”
Digitalisation Diplomat Morten Friis from the Danish Embassy in Stockholm offers a regional perspective. Denmark’s public digital ecosystem, rooted in shared national registers, common data standards, and unified infrastructure, has evolved over decades.
“Our digital journey in Denmark has been built on national registries and agreed datasets. It creates transparency and makes automation possible,” Friis explains.
Sweden has strong digital capabilities, but its administrative landscape is more decentralised, with 290 municipalities and numerous agencies using different systems. This diversity drives innovation but also creates complexity.
“The digital maturity in Swedish industry is very high. There is a great opportunity to complement that with more shared digital foundations in the public sector,” Friis notes.
Both Friis and Alvendal highlight that Sweden’s digital challenge is not about technology, it is about governance and coordination.
Who decides which standards to use? Who leads cross-sector digital projects? How do authorities align around shared systems?
“Digitalisation often requires preparation,” Alvendal says and elaborates: “If the underlying processes are unclear or fragmented, you transfer that complexity into a digital format. But if you take the time to align responsibilities, clarify workflows, and ensure that different authorities interpret the rules consistently, then digital tools can accelerate progress. The groundwork is just as important as the technology itself.”
Friis adds that while Sweden tends to take a comprehensive approach, ensuring that solutions are robust and well thought out, there may also be value in smaller pilots that build momentum and demonstrate what is possible.
Both perspectives point to similar priorities: strengthening coordination, reducing process duplication, ensuring political understanding of digitalisation, and building data foundations that make compliance easier for businesses, not harder.
A more unified digital foundation would support authorities and ease the burden on thousands of SMEs navigating multiple reporting requirements.
Sweden enters this transition from a position of strength: a world-leading tech sector, innovative industrial companies, global investment interest, and a society comfortable with digital tools.
The Acceleration Office represents a new mechanism to translate these strengths into faster, more predictable decision-making. Case by case, and reform by reform.
For Friis, the potential for collaboration is substantial. “Denmark and Sweden mirror each other in many ways,” he says and elaborates:
“We both have highly digital populations, strong industries, and a deep trust in public institutions. But we’ve taken different paths in building our digital foundations, and that creates real opportunities to exchange experiences. Denmark can learn from Sweden’s industrial digital strength, and Sweden can draw on Denmark’s decades of work with shared registers, standards, and governance models.”
For Alvendal, the mission is concrete: help Sweden build processes that match the pace and ambition of its industries, and ensure that public digital systems meet the expectations of a digital society.
“We need to focus on real problems, solve them, and show results,” she says.
As Europe accelerates its climate transition, Sweden is also accelerating the evolution of its public sector. If the Acceleration Office succeeds, it may become a model for countries across the continent that share a simple truth: ambition is essential, but effective execution is what brings it to life.
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