Essen is the third greenest major city in Germany. With its claim “green up your life,” the campaign focuses on Essen’s green sides and diversity. True to the motto, “My green Essen”, observers will, for example, learn: Essen has 3,100 hectares parks/green spaces and forest area and 376 kilometres of bicycle paths and wants to increase the share of bicycle traffic to 25% by 2035 and provide 20,000 jobs in the environmental economy by 2025.

With the title “European Green Capital 2017”, the European Commission honours a European city which has achieved high environmental standards and follows ongoing ambitious goals for the further improvement of environmental protection and sustainable development.  During the “Green Capital” year there will be numerous events, congresses and citizen projects to initiate sustainable processes and developments which will secure and improve the quality of life of the city of Essen in the long term.
Simone Raskob, Project Leader and Head of the city’s Department of Environment and Construction, explains how the domain ending got its name. “Winning the title “European Green Capital 2017” acknowledges that the city of Essen is, with its transformation ability, a role model for many other cities in Europe. This unique characteristic should be reflected in all communication. With www.essengreen.capital, we have chosen a URL which conveys exactly this. It is easily remembered, creates recognition value as well as identification for the citizens of the city of Essen and can also be understood internationally.” “Heimatgrün” (green homeland) is the magazine of the green capital which contains the latest news about the city and programme information and is already available at many places throughout Essen. There will be a total of six issues during the year. The magazine’s total print run is 200,000 copies per issue. The digital version was available under www.heimatgruen.ruhr.

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