corsus at the municipal congress “Now more than ever! – Sustainable development works!” 2025 in Berlin

This year’s municipal congress on 26 June took place against a backdrop of waning political interest in sustainability issues. In this respect, representatives from politics, administration and civil society met in Berlin under the motto ‘Now more than ever – sustainable development works!’ to analyse the current challenges and identify effective steps for the continuation of sustainable development at municipal level. corsus contributed to the discussions as a driver of municipal sustainability and, among other things, discussed approaches to the digitalisation of sustainability reports and the anchoring of sustainability in the budget.

The precarious budgetary situation of the municipalities, also in the medium term, and the demographically driven shortage of personnel were categorised as particularly challenging. Opportunities were seen in digitalisation, in the structural anchoring of sustainability management, but also in international urban diplomacy.

In terms of digitalisation, the Bertelsmann Stiftung is planning a digital platform for municipal reports, strategies and sustainability budgets together with the German Institute of Urban Affairs (difu). This should make it much easier to prepare, manage and monitor reports in a way that is appropriate for the target group. It was discussed how citizens and politicians can also be addressed emotionally with this technically promising solution.

As another important topic of municipal sustainability management, sustainability budgets were intensively scrutinised and discussed at the congress. The cities of Detmold and Kassel shared their experiences of setting up a sustainability budget. They discussed, for example, how the global sustainability goals can be linked to the budget in detail and how they can be digitally linked to their own sustainability strategy.

The keynote speech on the psychology of sustainability by Prof Dr Marcel Hunecke (Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts) posed the central question of how people can be empowered to want less without feeling worse. Prof Dr Hunecke contrasted a marketing approach with a quickly fizzling out effect with the long-term strengthening of central psychological resources such as self-efficacy and solidarity, which ultimately enable the acceptance and support of a socio-ecological transformation in the first place.

We were delighted to see familiar faces again, meet new ones and learn about developments in the municipalities.

The Municipal Congress is organised every two years by Engagement Global / Service Agency for Communities in One World and the Bertelsmann Stiftung with the support of the municipal head associations. corsus advises municipalities on the strategic implementation of sustainability and has implemented a wide range of projects for the SKEW, including on sustainability strategies and reports, fair procurement and the sustainable orientation of economic development programmes.