The Coaching-Process
Group photo from the first intermunicipal expert meeting © UFZ
From autumn 2025 to spring 2027, the BlueGreen City Coaching team is supporting the following ten major cities in implementing blue-green infrastructure:
Aachen, Braunschweig, Darmstadt, Freiburg, Göttingen, Gütersloh, Herne, Magdeburg, Mainz and Regensburg.
The selection of the cities deliberately reflects a range of challenges, opportunities and different stages in the implementation of blue-green infrastructure.
A total of around 150 municipal experts are participating in the coaching. These participants include representatives of each city‘s administration among them contributors from units like climate protection, climate adaptation, the environment, parks and green spaces, urban planning departments, mobility and civil engineering departments, lower water authorities, climate, environmental and planning divisions, nature conservation authorities, the fire brigade, heads of urban planning and transport planning departments, and managing directors of municipal wastewater utilities.
The coaching programme is led by the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), in cooperation with the German Institute of Urban Affairs (Difu) and Fresh Thoughts (FT). This interdisciplinary coaching connects the four modules of Blue-Green Infrastructure Planning, Law, Politics and Public Administration, and Costs, Benefits and Financing.
Within this project, the project partners understand "coaching" as supporting and advising municipalities in the implementation of blue-green infrastructure. The project team assumes that the knowledge and capacity required to overcome barriers to the large-scale implementation of this infrastructure already exist within each municipality.
In addition to providing technical advice, the aim is to work together with the coaching cities to identify structures, processes, and patterns of cooperation that either hinder or facilitate problem solving. The coaches support the municipal stakeholders in developing and implementing their own solutions.
Photo of an example of developing the coaching content © UFZ
The coaching is designed as a process in which individual city-specific formats alternate with intermunicipal advisory and exchange formats. On-site coaching sessions are planned for each of the ten municipalities, and digital consulting services are also available. All ten municipalities participate in cross-city expert workshops, where current topics are presented and discussed, and the exchange of intermunicipal experience is encouraged.
The coaching process is divided into four phases (project duration: September 2024 to August 2027; the project is currently in Phase 3):
Phase 1: A scientific and transdisciplinary analysis of the challenges and potential of the large-scale implementation of blue-green infrastructure in urban areas by experts from Difu and UFZ.
Phase 2: Tendering, application and selection process for participating cities , supported by the Association of German Cities, including intensive exploratory discussions. Following the selection of the ten coaching cities, specific coaching objectives and assignments for implementing blue-green infrastructure were jointly developed in ten introductory workshops.
Phase 3: Depending on the individual coaching assignment, the coaches provide the municipalities with different technical and methodological input. This includes expertise on the functioning and city-wide potential of blue-green infrastructure, the legal framework, and the practical organisation of the planning, implementation, and operation. Together with the cities, tailored solutions are developed for specific local contexts.
Phase 4: The collaboration with the municipalities results in concrete implementation strategies that can be submitted to municipal decision-making bodies for approval. The scientists systematically compile the findings from the city coaching process and prepare them for use by other municipalities.
Group photo from the launch of the BlueGreen City Coaching in Darmstadt © UFZ
Coaching in the ten cities
- One introductory on-site workshop and joint development of a city-specific coaching assignment
- Three inter-municipal expert meetings
- Development of an implementation strategy for each coaching city, tailored to its specific coaching assignment
- Based on these strategies, development of transferable model solutions for other cities