It takes patience to protect the climate, but unlike a marathon, there is no finish line after which you can sit back and relax. For the participants in the climathons from the district of Munich, the playful competition to reduce their own CO₂ emissions ended after 42 days. But they have only just warmed up to save the climate.
A total of 662 participants took part in the project from October 4th to November 14th, which took place for the first time this year. They completed so-called challenges on the Climate Compass app and were thus able to collect points. These challenges were part of six themed weeks that included mobility, nutrition, housing, leisure and vacation, consumption and digital life.
Christian Wolf, who co-organized the Klimathon as head of the Energy and Climate Protection department in the District Office, is satisfied with the number of participants. “We didn’t lure thousands of people out from behind the stove, but in itself it was a great turn-out for doing it for the first time,” said Wolf.
The ecological footprint is more than 30 percent smaller
Within the six weeks, a total of around 170,000 climate points were achieved, which corresponds to around 28 tonnes of CO₂ savings. “If we split these savings over the number of participants and if we were to maintain this commitment throughout the year, it would be around 1500 tons of C0₂ that can only be saved with these measures,” explains Wolf. Calculated over the year, each participant could reduce their footprint by more than 30 percent if the learned climate-friendly behavior were retained.
Andreas Fend took part in the Klimathon with the Unterschleißheim urban gardening team. The photo shows him with a small wind turbine on the site that the horticulturists cultivate.
(Photo: Robert Haas)
This includes, for example, the switch to green electricity, which around a third of the participants successfully completed. The most popular challenge was to swap the mineral water for the far more environmentally friendly tap water. Over 300 Klimathon participants mastered this task. Likewise, many people air-dried their laundry instead of using the tumble dryer. “In principle, you don’t have to do a lot, but you achieve a lot for the climate,” emphasizes teacher Daniela Weimar, who participated with the Höhenkirchen-Siegertsbrunn high school.
As head of the working group for the environment, she organized the participation in the Klimathon with schoolchildren. They made posters for the auditorium and went through the classes to get people excited about the project. Now they took second place in the team ranking behind the team of the Alpine Club. A total of 75 representatives from the school achieved 15,000 climate points, saving 2.4 tonnes of CO₂.
Christian Wolf is head of the Energy and Climate Protection department in the Munich District Office. He helped organize the first climathon in the district and is satisfied.
(Photo: private)
The competitive nature in particular spurs the children and adolescents on, as they can compare themselves to the other classes. “With a project like this you can reach students easily, they always have their cell phone in their hands,” Weimar explains. However, the participants would have liked to be able to see on the app who is currently ahead. Her favorite challenge was the meatless week. For inspiration in the kitchen, the members of the working group for the environment published recipe ideas for vegetarian nutrition on the screen in the auditorium.
Recycled IT goods
Andreas Fend, who participated with the urban gardening team from Unterschleißheim, achieved his best result in the shopping challenges. To do this, he recycled old IT hardware among friends. Only with the digital lifestyle did he get few points, because as a software developer he is always online.
In addition to coping with these tasks, he particularly appreciated the lively conversations that arose over the past six weeks. The members of the urban gardening team met and discussed avoiding waste in hygiene areas and the local cultivation of food. But he would have liked more events at the local level.
Christian Wolf also sees opportunities for improvement. Actually, the individual tasks should be based on the six themed weeks. “But they didn’t go so well together with the climate challenges in the app, which caused confusion,” explains the 38-year-old. For next year, the organizers want to talk to the operator of the app so that they can better match the second time the project is launched.