Climate protection experiment

30 Graz residents gave up meat and car keys

Each family received a vegetable box from pro mente once a week.(Bild: Gudrun Rönfeld)

In May, 30 people from Graz ventured into a climate protection experiment: for one month, they lived without a car and without meat and tried to consume as consciously as possible. The result: two families even sold their cars! And a lot changed in their lives in other ways too.

What can a city do to persuade its own employees to adopt more climate-friendly behavior? Administrations all over the world are pondering this. So are Gudrun Rönfeld and Julia Wohlfahrt. They are implementing the federally funded "Climate Pioneer City" project in Graz. "We didn't want to develop a computer program and commit 9,000 employees to it," they say. Instead, the women decided to take a different approach, inspired by a Swiss project.