KLAUS
BONDAM
Actor,
Politician, Green Activist
by Joseph Pedro
Each morning, Klaus Bondam says goodbye
to his husband and hops on his bike to work. He, like
55% of all Copenhageners, coasts through this beautiful
city in specially designed bike lanes. After a brisk
ride, Bondam parks outside City Hall and gets ready
for the day as Copenhagen’s Mayor for the Employment
and Integration Administration or, as most people
call him, the Bike Mayor.
Today, Bondam is a successful politico,
but his road to office took its share of unexpected
turns. Unlike his colleagues, Bondam’s resume lists
customs agent and computer programmer rather than masters
or law degrees. Regardless of profession, following
his passions has been his constant focus.
At the start, passports and PCs were
not part of his boyish fantasies while growing up on
the island of Bornholm, Denmark. “I liked to act
and perform at an early age,” he says. Chasing
after his dream, Bondam enrolled in Odense Drama School
in Copenhagen where he graduated in 1992. After a few
years of working various gigs, Bondam’s determination
and winning personality landed him a role in the award-winning
movie Festen (The Celebration). Doors began to open
after the film’s success. It wasn’t long until
he was taking roles on both stage and screen. He gained
acclaim for his appearances in the plays Shopping and
Fucking and The Full Monty, but true success and celebrity
came from his role as Niels Buckingam in the hit sitcom
Langt Fra Las Vegas (Far From Las Vegas). For five seasons,
he played an egregious news station CEO who over-shares
with his staff about his bathroom habits and sexual
fantasies. (A far cry from his actual polite and reserved
demeanor.) The show was wildly popular in Denmark and
launched Bondam further into the public eye.
The switch from drama to politics wasn’t
a radical detour for Bondam. He was active in the student
government throughout high school, and had been a member
of Det Radikale Venstre (The Social Liberal Party) since
the beginning of his acting career. He was also comfortable
taking the lead. “I was the director of two theatres
in Copenhagen before I became a politician, so I knew
the political and administrational structures and knew
how to take leadership,” he says. This experience
and, to an extent, his celebrity fueled his first foray
into Copenhagen’s government. He was elected to
the City Council in 2001 and served as the Party Group
Chairman until 2005.
Having test-driven both the acting and
political routes, Bondam laughs at the similarities
between the two. “You work late hours, drink a
lot of coffee, and the media has a big say in whether
you are successful or not.” Lattes aside, he still
looks back to his earlier careers from his current leadership
seat. "I often remind the officials in the municipality
that I am not a scholar, and that many people aren’t,
so the communication needs to be straightforward. I
understand problems and solutions better when I talk
to people in the city who are influenced by our decision,
[rather] than by reading a memo."
This frankness and focus on the people
has helped boost his popularity. It also helped give
him the confidence to make an ambitious political move.
Bondam ran for Lord Mayor in 2005. That year, the party’s
city council representation grew from five to seven
(to a total of 55 councilors), which did not give him
the majority needed. Bondam was instead named the Mayor
of the Technical and Environment Administration
area. Although unexpected, this twist of fate gave him
the opportunity to create change in a field he was truly
passionate about. Through his ambitious goals and strong
leadership, Bondam has helped thrust Copenhagen to the
forefront of green, city living.
From the start, Bondam has sweated and
toiled to set clear, realistic goals. The Copenhagen
2015 is by far his most ambitious initiative. “By
2015 the goal is to become the world’s best city
for cyclists, center for world climate politics, a green
and blue capital, and the cleanest capital in Europe,”
he says. This is no easy task, but Bondam has already
jump started the project by taking small steps toward
creating an “ecometropolis.”
In order to reach this carbon neutral
goal, Bondam needed to quite literally “green”
the city. He was inspired by New York City’s “pocket
parks,” and headed successful campaigns to introduce
them to his city. He invested in creating green roofs
(buildings with gardens and solar energy on top), and
of course, as the Bike Mayor, embraced the existing
biking culture. “We learned that investing in bicycle
infrastructure (building bicycle paths and bridges only
for bicyclists and pedestrians, rebuilding traffic lights
for the safety of cyclists, etc.) combined with campaigning
for more cycling was the right combination. We didn’t
tell people what to do or how to transport themselves,
but we encouraged the many people who would already
go by bike, to do so more often,” he says. Under
Bondam the number of cyclists increased by over ten
percent.
The capital’s development as a
leader in sustainable, urban, eco-living was further
confirmed when the 2009 Climate Change Conference selected
Copenhagen as its host city. “It enforced
a bigger consciousness amongst the Danes, and it gave
us the chance to show other cities and other nations
that sustainability can go hand in hand with financial
growth and a better quality of life.”
Cities can certainly follow Copenhagen’s
tracks when it comes to building a carbon neutral locale,
but Bondam says making a change also comes down to the
everyday person. “The most important thing is to
think twice before you choose your mode of transportation,
your daily habits in the supermarket, bathroom, etc.,”
he states.
Continued
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