Detmold (Germany) has joined ICLEI!

Detmold is the capital of culture in the Teutoburg Forest area. The municipality is home to 75,000 inhabitants from around 120 nations. It is no wonder that Detmold holds this "captial of culture" title, given its broad cultural programme spanning a European Streets Theatre Festival and European Market, as well as a theatre culture, regional museum, open air museum, and Academy of Music.

Detmold adopted a sustainable development strategy in 2021, which focuses on six central topics relating to all three pillars of sustainability; the strategy will be reviewed and updated every two years. Now Detmold is working towards becoming a Smart City. Their aim is to use digitalisation not as an end in itself, but rather as a tool to help reach sustainability goals. Their priority is including all locals in the process of dco-eveloping the city's Smart City agenda together.

Regarding the city’s sustainability goals, Frank Hilker, Mayor of Detmold says, “Every day we talk about finance, education, culture, environment, social, and many other topics. And everywhere, there is a lot to do. But there is a common goal above all of this: as the city of Detmold, let's aim to use our resources to treat our planet gently and cautiously. Sustainability succeeds only if small actions are taken to achieve something big. This is not possible for one alone, but only together.”

Learn more about Detmold on their website here.

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