To achieve a sustainable development in accordance with the UN report “Our common future” the Swedish government has instituted 16 national environmental goals. The municipalities in Sweden have different means of reaching those goals. The purpose of this study was to see if there are any differences in that work regarding the size and location of the municipality. The purpose was also to find out what obstacles the municipalities face and come up with suggestions to overcome those obstacles. The results showed that smaller municipalities generally lack resources for the environmental work and that the issues hindering the bigger municipalities in their work is that other issues such as health care are prioritized over environmental matters. The issues that will be prioritized in the Swedish municipalities are decided by the ruling politicians. One problem with this is that the politicians tend to prioritize issues that are more popular with the inhabitants and that environmental issues thus get overlooked. To improve the environmental work in the Swedish municipalities this have to change. If the environmental work gets more visibility the attitudes of the people might change and that might affect the politicians to make different priorities. If the municipalities have a lack of funds there are special grants that can be applied for from the EU. Those funds can then be used to hire more personnel to work with environmental issues. The municipalities will play an important role if the national environmental goals are to be reached in time.