Circulus team members join the dialogue on new economic systems and a regional food in the national competition “Future Cities” (Wettbewerb Zukunftstadt) for a sustainable Freiburg.
The City of Freiburg participates in the national competition “Future Cities” ( Wettbewerb Zukunftstadt ) that aims to motivate municipalities to come up with local visions of a sustainable future. Having entered the second phase of this competition, the city of Freiburg’s “Future Dialogue II” ( Zukunftsdialog II ) held on 18th July 2017 brought together about 60 citizens, researchers and representatives from policy and business to co-create visions and concepts for implementing a transition to a sustainable City of Freiburg 2030. Building on a first stage of the Future Dialogue, local-state-of-the-art studies in the three focus areas sustainable energy, new economic systems , and a regional food system have informed the dynamic debate on further steps and research needs as well as possible pilot-projects to be set-up in the near future. The aim of this dialogue is to implement real-life laboratories in several districts of the city that serve as a sort of “playground” for experimenting with production, consumption, and management practices to put actions behind the visions of a sustainable city.
For the Circulus team, contributing to closely related, practice relevant and transformative projects in front of one’s doorstep is not to be missed. Dr. Sina Leipold joined the working group of new economic systems in which topics such as sustainable construction, shared responsibility, and strengthening the link between social entrepreneurship and citizen engagement emerged as a priority. In the working group regional food system , attended by Robert Gundlach, an animated debate included issues such as quantifying the regional food shed and the potential to eat more regional, conducting “consumption experiments” on eating habits in several districts, reducing food waste and increasing food sovereignty by strengthening the relationship between producers and consumers.
With the abundance of ideas and enthusiasm demonstrated by the dialogue’s participants, the Circulus team is keen on seeing the City of Freiburg launching into the next phase of the competition and looks forward to the real-life laboratories to be set-up all over town.
