Let's Talk About Green Cities: Freiburg

It is only fitting to start off my first blog post focusing on Freiburg, the city where my father is from in Germany. 

Situated in the southwest corner of Germany, it’s close to France and Switzerland and is right on the edge of the black forest. It’s proximity to nature might be one of the reasons that it is known as the “greenest” city in Germany. 

The environmental movement started in Freiburg: in 1975, thousands of protestors camped out in the Black Forest near Freiburg to stop the construction of the proposed nuclear power plant. 

In the decades since, Freiburg has evolved to be a hub of environmental economics and solar research. It also fosters community sustainability efforts: in the post-war period, the city was redesigned to focus on public transport, with wide pedestrian zones and many bike routes. With 400 km of bike paths and twice as many bikes as cars, many citizens don’t own vehicles. 

The main square, the Münsterplatz also features a farmer’s market with local produce, much of which is organic (or Bio, as they say in German) every day of the week.

Image

And Freiburg doesn’t just stop there: Freiburg has several sustainability goals: it has targets to reduce their carbon emissions by 50% by 2030, 100% renewable energy by 2050.