Green talk with the Mayor of Heidelberg

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How does a quaint university town in southwestern Germany confront climate change? What does it say about urban green credentials when it comes to applying strict, but user-friendly environmental standards?
In this special program of The Hub “Green Talks with Mayors,” Wang Guan talks to Lord Mayor of Heidelberg Eckart Würzner to discuss two decades of green initiatives, from energy-efficient schemes to a more liveable, greener environment. Würzner tells Wang Guan about the “Heidelberg standard” of sustainable development and delves into the city’s “passive housing projects” aimed at building one of the world’s largest carbon-neutral districts. He believes it’s essential to bring the private sector on board through incentives and that such an approach can serve as a template and be replicated worldwide.

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Across the Eurasian continent heidleberg in Germany is also committed to a zeroc carbon future boed by a rich tradition of environmental initiatives hyberg made history in 1992 as the first German City to implement a Citywide climate protection concept today we’re honored to have Dr Ard dner the mayor of hyberg

To join us in this great conversation who will share his insights into the city’s inovative approaches and their profound impacts on fostering A Greener and more Vibrant Community okay Dr worner welcome to the program on cgtn hello wonderful meeting you greetings from heidleberg let’s talk about your wonderful city um H highberg

Germany it has so many titles under its belt can you tell us about this agrain transition uh which is multifaceted of course and let me ask you first of all about this passive housing project which is one of the largest in the world what is a passive housing and how did haberg

Build it yeah you have to know that hyberg is a is a it’s a wonderful as you can see a wonderful historic University Town our our biggest treasure is knowledge and if you have the knowledge for example to to build super efficient buildings like passive houses which

Needed about 1.5 L per square meter and year oil instead of 15 or 20 it shows the gap between the technical potential and that’s what normally a regular building standard is and what we wanted to achieve in harderberg is use the knowledge create a better perspective for your citizens create a better life

For for your citizens and this will also cause the global in in a global Dimension uh the global change uh question because if you are acting on the local level you can show best practice example and that’s exactly what the citizens wanted to see from us you

Have been mayor of heidleberg for nearly two decades I still want to get your sense on how you put it off in terms of building this passive housing project which is the large in the world uh to many average viewers who might not be terribly familiar with

What a passive housing is uh can you tell us um how did you guys bu it the big discussion we had was you you have a tacnical solution but uh the National Standard is much too weak and what we have done was uh we owned the whole area which we

Wanted to develop so we becoming one of the biggest landlords uh in our region and then we decided okay if you wants to buy any piece of land here you wants to build a house there a retail shop a sports gym or a Medical Institute whatever you have to accept the

Harderberg politically decision uh um standard which is the passive house standard and by doing so we could achieve that every building is has to use the standards also if it’s much much much low than a National Standard at the beginning we had a huge discussion oh

It’s too expensive you can’t pay it but no the people uh learn very quickly that you reduce the energy demand so rapidly that you save so much money that it’s absolutely also economically very uh it makes very much uh sense to use this higher standard in the midterm and long-term strategy um

For for a free market democracy like Germany was there resistance in the beginning some might say oh this is undemocratic this is anti-free Market um were there voices like that back in the day absolutely that’s that’s all the whole range you had we had at the beginning no heidleberg Building Company

Who wants to accept this building standard because they said it’s much too expensive but we get a lot of people attracted uh who understand that this standard is uh is the game Cher uh in in setting up future oriented City areas and by doing so bringing also

External people here to hyberg and they love heidleberg they find it a great concept a great strategy uh which wanted to support this city of uh a walking distance you can achieve everything uh bicycle city tram loock lines in the city green areas around the new city area and uh a

Reduction of the climate emissions of this city area by more than 85% that this is a future concept and over the years now everybody is a great fan of uh such a structure but at the beginning it was not easy it was heavily we had a lot of political discussions

But uh those who have uh the knowledge in our city also our political board decided no we wanted to get a step further in developing this the city for the next Generations hyberg is well connected is considered a major Transportation Hub and uh maybe you can

Tell us a bit about um under your Administration how did heidleberg make the very City more walkable and more cyclable reducing the carbon footprint the first first thing is you have to attract the downtown areas um as pedestrian areas the second step is uh you always have to define a mixture so

Not a city area where the people are working and a city area where the people are sleeping so you have laugh lots of Transportation need this is not a future concept so we wanted to have a walking distance City urban city where you have

Every ing on in one area so uh the new city areas they have mostly in the center campus University campus areas small and medium Enterprises pars pups and residential area so it’s a mixture Second Step you have to expand your mass transport system so trams and

Buses and on the other hand and uh if you do so you also have to take into account that bicycle driving is the cheapest environmental friendliest way of also not only short distance which was in the past situation also in the medium distances because by using more and more electric

Bikes uh it becomes really a bigger movement also for medium and long-term distances so that you can commute over five 10 kilm to downtown area or 3 4 kilm very easily by uh using bikes and by expanding the bike Lanes so also bike Highway Lanes to the downtown area we

Achieved that in hurg about 80% of the citizens are not using cars anymore on the larger question that the role of government um mayor Dr wner I want to ask you about this fine line between you know a policy and unleashing the full potential of the free market um what are

You doing on one hand in implementing all the standards and regulations and on the other hand um trying to perhaps harness the energy of the free market engaging with Nos and Enterprises I think you won’t achieve your goals if you’re not integrating the Enterprises um uh I’m a great friend of

Of uh open doors in many or in mostly every part you have a wonderful technical solution which it’s a GameChanger but the technical solution is not implemented because at the beginning it’s mostly a little bit more expensive or it’s a little bit more unknown Technic so uh craft and trade

Chambers are not so convinced with this technology say they have to be trained they have to be uh yeah work together with these new techn Solutions that’s what we’re doing so we have huge not only awareness campaigns we have also advice teams outside who practice who train together with the

Enterprises the new product lines and in the new tools and by doing so you can change a lot you can integrate the new Enterprises you can use private Capital money which is absolutely needed to implement lots of those new Solutions and doing so you really achieve that the

Economic development of your city the social Dimension and the environmental Dimension is really equally uh combined in this new future concept can you perhaps give us one most striking story about this multi benefits uh that the grain transition is bringing to the residents of iberg you have lots of

Schools but you have just a small Administration unit who is trying to make the retrofitting program for the schools and you have also uh package of money which is mostly not enough to renovate all the buildings and all the heating systems so by bringing in private uh

Companies giving them a revenue for one two years they will make the renovation the retrofitting in your existing buildings for example your school bu building they Implement a new heating system they make the renovation uh we make a contract for 5 years two years more is the revenue for the private

Company but therefore I don’t need so much money uh uh in my Administration I can uh run those programs with a smaller number of in the administration and uh it’s a game Cher because in a very short period of time I really can achieve my goal to reduce the energy demand for

Example of all schools and kindergartens in h and by running this program we have reduced in less uh than 10 years more than 50% of the total demand of energy for all schools and kindergartens in hyur so climate implementation strategy means quicker uh achieving your goals uh and it’s economically rentable for lots

Of companies creates business and creates uh employment so it has a social Dimension and it’s also climate friendly mayor wner our program features Mayors from around the world uh particularly the C40 mayors of which haberg is a part of um what do you want to say to your fellow Mayors uh Municipal leaders

Around the world especially when it comes to the experiences of The Grandin transition and the Lessons Learned along the way yeah I think we can learn a lot from each other so therefore these exchange of our experiences is one of the leading points the second point is

That our voices are heard on the national and supranational louder so for uh for the G7 process for example uh in Europe and with Canada us and Japan uh we’re working now in a U7 process so that also cities can take over here in this process a leading position

That we are part of the cop meetings that we Implement not only our ideas our Solutions into these uh political papers and then we achieve these uh goals much easier that was the result of Paris where we brought in a lot of energy uh by Bloomberg a lot of uh an dogor and

Many other Mayors from the C40 uh group who said yes we can do this we wanted to achieve these goals and we have to achieve these goals so please use our tools what we have already implemented uh in cities here and there finally what are your thoughts on uh the

Progress of China especially at Municipal levels uh when it comes to decarbonizing the Chinese Society the Chinese cities I’m always very impressed because uh at the beginning uh 15 years ago it was uh a lot of discussion what China can learn from Europe or from heidleberg or

Whatever uh that this has changed uh China is very active in the climate uh policy and strategy China is taking over lead position of implementing uh huge megawatt power plants in the field of Renewables uh is taking over a lead in the production line uh is taking over a

Lead in in new product lines when I think about uh new fuel Technologies like uh hydrogen uh but uh I’m very much interested that we all uh participate in this process not just one country it’s a process where every country has to use very easily these new technology can get

A very easy uh way to use it also so in a cheaper way uh to use it in a much higher demand so China is a great example today Dr wner mayor of hyberg Germany thank you so much for being on our show thank you for your time thank

You that will do it for this special program thank you so much for tuning in I’m M and I see you again soon