12:28 min, upload from 06/19/2020; presentation at the Berlin Energy Days 2020.
371 modular student apartments are to be ready as early as autumn. Rents are to be up to 500 euros.
Read the article from 16 December in the Hamburger Tagblatt:
www.abendblatt.de/...groesstes-Holzhaus.html
Keywords:
Wood construction, News Blog Hamburg, Settlements, Student housing
Recklinghausen. Energy in the hands of citizens: This was the topic of the specialist conference on citizen energy & energy cooperatives in North Rhine-Westphalia on Thursday, 6 December, in Recklinghausen. Around 80 stakeholders in community energy met there to exchange experiences and transfer knowledge. The 5th symposium is a cooperation of the Cooperative Association - Association of Regions and the EnergyAgency.NRW.
Marlies Diephaus from the Ministry for Economic Affairs, Innovation, Digitalisation and Energy of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia kicked off the conference by emphasising the importance of citizen energy companies: "The energy transition is a major challenge that must be shaped in a positive and forward-looking way here in North Rhine-Westphalia. To this end, a reliable framework must be created in which all stakeholders and affected parties can find their place. Last but not least, the financial participation of citizens in various forms also plays a central role. It can contribute to the acceptance of this project of the century.
In the Raiffeisen Year 2018 - the anniversary year of the cooperative idea - around 20 million people in Germany are members of a cooperative. In the field of citizen energy, too, more and more people are discovering this form of joint economic activity. "The global energy turnaround is only possible at all through local action. Here, citizens, organised in citizen energy societies, are both drivers and advocates. This is where co-determination and regional participation happen locally," explained Dr Frank-Michael Baumann, Managing Director of EnergyAgency.NRW.
Dominik Kitzinger, Division Manager at the Association of Cooperatives - Verband der Regionen e. V., emphasised: "In North Rhine-Westphalia, around 100 energy cooperatives are active as operators of generation capacities - from photovoltaic to wind energy plants - as well as around 150 citizen energy companies of other legal forms. Nationwide, more than 41 percent of investments in renewable energy come from civic engagement. If Germany wants to meet its climate targets, it can only do so with this local commitment."
In addition to projects from the areas of photovoltaics, local heating and wind, the focus was also on the mobility transition. Here, the participants agreed that e-mobility must go hand in hand with the energy transition. Citizen energy companies and cooperatives must therefore be strengthened through cooperation and transformation. Cooperatives that already market car sharing, the operation of charging infrastructures and jointly produced electricity were presented as best-practice examples. There are around 40 energy cooperatives active in these areas throughout NRW.
Despite the growing interest in cooperative management, the number of new energy cooperatives founded has declined in recent years. René Groß from the German Cooperative and Raiffeisen Association blames the changed legal framework conditions for this, but also the complex demands on the mostly voluntarily organised civil societies. In this context, the conference participants also debated the controversial effects of legislation at national and European level, such as through the Energy Collection Act and the new EU Directive as well as the Renewable Energies Directive.
Keywords:
100% EEs, Stakeholders, Citizen Energy, DE-News, Renewable, Climate protection, News Blog NRW, Social / Culture, eG, Ecology, Economics
More than 30 mayors agreed on new strategic cornerstones for sustainability on Thursday, 14 November 2019. Among them is Bonn's Lord Mayor Ashok Sridharan. The city leaders want to expand the cities' scope for action and call for sustainable development to be placed at the heart of political decision-making.
The key issues paper is an important contribution to positioning the local level in the German sustainability debate. It contains concrete impulses for the further development of the German sustainability strategy. The paper makes clear where the strengths of cities lie and how important they are as partners of the Federal Government in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
"Sustainability goes beyond climate protection. In addition to efforts to protect the climate, we must also be concerned with the social, ecological and economic framework for sustainability as a whole. Now and for future generations," explained Burkhard Jung, Mayor of the City of Leipzig and President of the German Association of Cities at the dialogue meeting.
"Even though it is a global issue, it has to be implemented in the cities and villages, and people have to live with our decisions there. Local politics is more important than it has been given credit for so far. The federal and state governments must coordinate their goals and measures even more strongly and in a structured dialogue with the municipalities and enable the municipalities to take their own action for more sustainability," said Jung.
Sustainability in Bonn
With its sustainability strategy adopted in February 2019, Bonn has set itself a systemic agenda for the implementation of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations. The declaration of climate emergency in July was now followed by the setting of an ambitious target: climate neutrality by 2035.
Bonn's mayor Ashok Sridharan, who is also president of ICLEI, a global network of cities, municipalities and regions for sustainability, says: "Sustainability, and climate protection in particular, is an existential issue for our cities. Our concrete projects for climate-friendly, energy-saving mobility and our urban planning influence how today's young people will live later. Moreover, our experiences provide the data on which meaningful strategies can be built."
An important topic of the key issues paper is cooperation. Bonn not only maintains project partnerships in which sustainable development projects find their place, but is also involved in professional cooperations such as ICLEI's "Green Circular Cities Coalition" or the "PREVENT Waste Alliance", which was launched by Federal Development Minister Gerd Müller.
Also anchored in the paper as an essential aspect of sustainability in the city society is the topic of education for sustainable development (ESD). Bonn's ESD activities include not only proven event formats such as the United Nations Day or the SDG Days, which have been established since 2018, but also a variety of other educational offerings, some of which are also offered in English.
Dialogue "Sustainable City
The "Sustainable City" dialogue is a long-standing project of the mayors. The dialogue process is supported and facilitated by the German Council for Sustainable Development (RNE). In this process, the lord mayors advocate for sustainable development in their cities in a special way. They exchange their own approaches as political leaders and explore the question of how municipal sustainability policy can gain more profile and weight in federal politics as well.
pdf download "Cornerstone paper of the mayors":
www.nachhaltigkeitsrat.de/...Strategische_Eckpunkte_November_2019.pdf
Keywords:
Bonn, DE-News, Communities, SDG 2030, Environmental policy
A study by the Forum for an Ecological-Social Market Economy on behalf of Greenpeace (Published in March 2020)
Green Marshall Plan for Germany. 13 pages | 655 kB
As a result of the Corona crisis, the state will implement emergency aid and far-reaching stimulus measures of historic proportions. While the focus is on health and short-term support for workers and businesses, the mistakes of past economic crises must not be repeated. The planned aid for an economic reboot can set the course for the necessary transformation. A number of examples illustrate how short-term economic support can be reconciled with long-term social priorities.
Keywords:
DE-News, Research, Sustainable management, New books and studies, Environmental policy
