Sustainability strategy of the city of Beckum

The town of Beckum successfully applied to take part in the "Process Chain Sustainability NRW" project organised by the NRW Ministry of the Environment and will now receive support for the creation of a municipal sustainability strategy until the end of 2024.

Resilient and sustainable municipal development is increasingly coming into focus. Advancing climate change, the loss of biodiversity and social inequalities are examples of worsening ecological and social challenges. With the development of an integrated sustainability strategy, the city of Beckum now wants to develop concrete goals and measures to make itself sustainable and liveable.

The town of Beckum is one of ten selected model municipalities in the project "Process Chain Sustainability NRW" (PKN NRW), which are being supported in the development of individual sustainability strategies. The project is made possible by funding from the Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Transport of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (MUNV).

The State Working Group Agenda 21 NRW e.V. (LAG 21 NRW), which has already supported more than 40 local authorities in drawing up a sustainability strategy, was commissioned with the implementation.

The first term of the project is now starting and will run until the end of 2024. The participating municipalities will develop their strategies in the context of the global sustainability goals of the United Nations, which were adopted in 2015 as part of the 2030 Agenda. The German Sustainability Strategy and the NRW Sustainability Strategy will also be taken into account when developing the municipality-specific sustainability goals.

The strategies are developed from the ground up in a participatory and cooperative manner. Various institutions from administration, politics, civil society, business and science are involved via a steering group. Over the course of five meetings, the 2024 steering group will develop an integrated programme of action with guidelines, strategic and operational goals and concrete measures for sustainable development. The basis for this is a status quo analysis, which will be compiled over the coming months. This status quo analysis presents the existing sustainability activities of the city of Beckum and analyses current developments with the help of key figures. The project is being coordinated locally by Climate Protection Manager Max Hegemann and the Head of the Environment and Greenery Department, Tobias Illbruck. The focus of a municipal sustainability strategy for the town of Beckum lies in the area of urban development. At the end of the project, the sustainability strategy will be adopted by the political bodies and implemented.

1st meeting of the steering group:

Beckum sets out on the path to a sustainability strategy

The town of Beckum is one of 10 model municipalities in North Rhine-Westphalia taking part in the "Process Chain Sustainability NRW" project and is developing an integrated sustainability strategy that combines social, economic and ecological objectives.

The first meeting of the steering group in Beckum's Ständesaal has now been launched. The steering group with representatives from companies, political groups, the municipal community and the town of Beckum will develop the content of the sustainability strategy and, together with two project managers from the Landesarbeitsgemeinschaft Agenda 21 NRW e.V. (LAG 21 NRW), work out the five fields of action for which goals, guidelines, values and measures are to be developed.

With the help of a "gallery walk", the participants had the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the ten fields of action available for selection, which are derived from the 17 global sustainability goals specifically for municipalities, and then cast their vote for five fields of action.

During the event, the members of the steering group voted in favour of the following fields of action: sustainable administration, good work & sustainable management, climate protection & energy, sustainable mobility and resource conservation & climate impact adaptation.

The sustainability strategy will now be developed with these areas of action in the upcoming meetings of the steering group.

The aim of the project is to contribute to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development at municipal level. The "Process Chain Sustainability NRW" project runs until the end of 2024 and ends with the adoption of the action programme by the Beckum City Council.

The project is being implemented by LAG 21 NRW on behalf of the Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Transport of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (MUNV).

2nd meeting of the steering group:

Dr Christian Hofbauer, Head of the Environment and Building Department of the City of Beckum, warmly welcomed the participants to the second steering group meeting of the sustainability strategy. He emphasised the importance of the topic and thanked those present for their commitment to Beckum. Maximilian Hegemann was also introduced as the new coordinator of the sustainability strategy. The team leader of the sustainability strategies at the Agenda 21 NRW state working group gave an overview of the meeting and explained the process for creating the strategy.

Tobias Illbruck, Head of Environmental and Green Services and Deputy Coordinator of the City of Beckum, briefly looked back at the previous meeting, in which the fields of action were prioritised. These include resource conservation & climate impact adaptation, good work & sustainable management, sustainable administration, climate protection & energy and sustainable mobility.

The research assistant from LAG 21 NRW explained the importance of guidelines and goals for the sustainability strategy and guided the participants through the methodology for developing these goals up to the year 2035. The "thinking in writing" method was used to record visions and ideas for the future for Beckum and to organise and discuss bundles of content.

An outlook for the next steps is the formulation of the guidelines and objectives that will be developed in preparation for the next meeting.

3rd meeting of the steering group:

Dr Christian Hofbauer, Head of the Environment and Building Department of the City of Beckum, welcomed the participants to the third meeting of the steering group as part of the "Process Chain Sustainability NRW". He gave a brief review of the development process of the sustainability strategy to date and emphasised the relevance of a concrete and implementable target structure.

Roman Wolf, LAG 21 NRW project researcher, presented the agenda and explained the planned procedure. The aim of this meeting was to present the thematic guidelines and strategic goals, to discuss and decide on them together and to develop initial operational goals for the individual fields of action.

Mr Wolf then explained the development and methodology of the guidelines and strategic objectives, which are based on the results of the previous meeting. The participants had the opportunity to mark their change requests using sticky dots. These were discussed in the plenary session, adjusted in terms of content and jointly adopted. The final guidelines and strategic objectives were adopted unanimously.

In a second step, Sina Hilgers, research assistant at LAG 21 NRW, presented the importance of operational objectives. These are intended to facilitate concrete action and form the basis for the subsequent programme of measures. The participants each worked in small groups on one of the prioritised fields of action. A responsible person led the discussion for each field of action. The aim was to further develop existing ideas and work out operational goals. The results were documented and serve as the basis for the fourth meeting.

Finally, there was an outlook on the next steps: The adopted guidelines and strategic goals will be followed up by LAG 21 NRW and sent to the steering group. The operational objectives will be revised with the core team and sent out in preparation for the next meeting on 18 September 2024. At this fourth meeting, the operational objectives will be finalised and the first concrete measures and resources for implementing the sustainability strategy will be developed.

4th meeting of the steering group:

Mayor Michael Gerdhenrich welcomed the participants to the fourth meeting of the steering group as part of the "Process Chain Sustainability NRW". He thanked them for their continued commitment and explained that the original meeting date had been postponed due to delays in coordination. In addition, following the third meeting, the Administrative Board and in consultation with the Industry Association made some adjustments to the content of the guidelines and strategic objectives.

Moritz Schmidt from LAG 21 NRW introduced the meeting and led through the agenda. Firstly, the changes made to the strategic objectives were presented and discussed together with the steering group. The members had the opportunity to make comments and clarify open questions. All proposed changes were adopted unanimously with one abstention.

Mr Schmidt then presented the final drafts of the operational objectives, which had been further developed on the basis of the third meeting and taking into account data and specifications from the core team. The participants had the opportunity to mark any changes they wished to make with sticky dots. These were discussed in plenary and adopted with specific editorial and content adjustments. The changes included aspects of administrative digitalisation, existing activities in the mobility sector and the clarification of long-term objectives in areas such as climate protection, the economy and resource conservation.

It was also planned to develop concrete proposals for measures relating to the operational objectives. Due to the extensive discussions on the previous thematic blocks, this point could not be realised as planned. In consultation with the core team, LAG 21 NRW will therefore establish a procedure for the subsequent submission of proposals for measures to the members of the steering group. The aim is to collect one or two suitable ideas for measures for each proposed goal by the next meeting.

At the end of the meeting, an outlook on further planning was given. The final version of the strategic and operational objectives will now be drawn up by the core team and sent out together with the catalogue of measures in preparation for the fifth meeting. The final steering group meeting will take place on 29 January 2025. At this meeting, the programme of action will be adopted and structures will be developed to ensure that work on the sustainability strategy continues beyond the end of the project.

5th meeting of the steering group:

Michael Gerdhenrich, Mayor of Beckum, opened the fifth and final meeting of the steering group for the sustainability strategy and thanked the participants for their ongoing commitment. He emphasised the intensive but rewarding process in which concrete goals and measures for sustainable urban development were developed in several meetings.

Moritz Schmidt from LAG 21 NRW gave an overview of the course of the meeting. The aim was to adopt the final action programme and discuss the future consolidation of the working structures.

The action programme comprises the five prioritised fields of action: sustainable administration, good work and sustainable management, climate protection and energy, sustainable mobility and resource conservation and climate impact adaptation. A total of five guidelines, eighteen strategic goals, thirty-six operational goals and sixty-three measures (four of which are new) were developed. During the meeting, final amendments were proposed, for example to specific descriptions of measures, editorial adjustments and the citing of existing concepts as a basis. Following the discussion, the entire action programme was adopted unanimously.

In a second step, the group discussed ways of stabilising the process. It was suggested that existing bodies such as the Climate Protection Advisory Board should be involved and that the steering group should continue with regular meetings. The prospect of updating the action programme was also raised. The city council's parliamentary groups are to be informed about the results and the next steps at an early stage.

At the end, Mayor Gerdhenrich and Sina Hilgers from LAG 21 NRW thanked everyone involved for their commitment throughout the entire process.

The strategy was unanimously adopted by the Beckum City Council on 10 July 2025.