 Funtiwch, wrth gwrs, ddim yn ffawr am y 19 ffostigol y cymdeithasol Cymru Cymdeithasol Cymru i'w 22 yma, oedd yw'r cyfraith yn gyffredinol y format ymwneud. Felly, rydyn ni'n hynny'n ai wneud hynny'n hyslop a chyllid Stevenson yn cyfraithio'r cymdeithasol i'w gyrfa i'r newid. Fy enw i'r cymdeithasol, rydyn ni'n ffawr hynny'n cymdeithasol cymdeithasol. At agenda item 1, we have consideration of whether to take items 3, 4 and 5 in private. Item 3 is consideration of the committee's annual report. Item 4 is consideration of the evidence heard today. Item 5 is consideration of our approach in relation to an inquiry into ferry services. Do we agree to take these items in private? Thank you very much. That is agreed. Item 3, 4 and 5 will be taken in private. Our next item is an evidence session in relation to our on-going inquiry into the role of local government and its cross-sectoral partners in financing and delivering in net zero Scotland. Today, we are delighted to have a representative of the city of Freiburg in Germany's Black Forest, a city well known for its net zero policies. We are going to use this short session to explore what experience local authorities in Scotland can gain from the city of Freiburg in relation to their responsibilities in delivering net zero. This morning, I am delighted to welcome Francesca Breyer, Executive Manager of Climate Neutrality Staff Unit, Environmental Protection Office, Green City Freiburg. Good morning, Ms Breyer. Thank you very much for joining us. It is a pleasure to have you in front of this committee of the Scottish Parliament. We have allocated around 45 minutes for this session and I believe you would like to start with a brief opening statement. If that is correct, I will hand over to you. Thank you very much for the occasion to tell something about our experience in Freiburg with sustainable development and climate protection. For myself, I am a forest thereby profession. I work with the State Forest Administration but now I work quite a bit in the city administration for about 30 years. In different functions now, I am in charge of the staff unit climate neutrality because although Freiburg is committed for a very long time already to sustainability and climate protection, we realise that we have to move on faster and be more radical, more efficient in this field of action. I hope that I can answer all your questions and I will take notes if I cannot and I am very curious. I have been to Edinburgh by my daughter. I have worked there for half a year once and I like the city very much and I think exchanging experience, exchanging information that moves the world, especially the local level to my opinion is very important to achieve net zero on climate neutrality without the cities and local authorities. It won't work, so I hope that I can contribute something to your level of information. I will try to do my best. Excellent. Thank you very much indeed. I completely agree that exchanging good ideas is, after all, a global challenge that we all face, so exchanging ideas is a very good thing to do. Once again, thank you very much for being with the committee this morning. The first question that I have is a common challenge that we face in Scotland and I believe in your area as well. That is the challenge of retrofitting houses to make the fabric of homes more insulated combined with the decarbonisation of heating. I wonder if you could talk us through the different measures taken in Freiburg in the area of energy efficiency and heat decarbonisation and what role has the private sector played in this delivery of the decarbonisation of heat? Yes. There are two parts of your question. The one is how much energy do buildings and houses consume and how do we provide this energy? The first has a longer history in Freiburg already at the beginning of the 90s. We've defined a building standard for new houses in Freiburg being built, although apart from this we have to say the building stock is also a big challenge, but building new houses, it's easier naturally to achieve a high standard and we already always, we had the ambition to be a little bit ahead of the state law and the federal regulations for housing. So low energy housing has a tradition of 30 years already in Freiburg and if the state law and the federal law doesn't allow us to define a too high standard, we put it in the contracts. If we sell land for investors to build houses, we put it in the private land contract if the law doesn't allow us to define a very high standard. So we define our own standard and try to regulate this via the land contract for housing. So if we have new areas of the city where a building takes place, we try to define a standard as high as possible knowing that it's very, the real estate market is really on top in Freiburg. It's very, very pricey, very costly to live here and the real estate business really makes revenue. So I think they can afford a high energy standard and this also means lower costs for heating actually for the people, but we realise that building new houses, it's easy to have a very high standard, but the building stock, how to refurbish, how to retrofit the housing stock is really a challenge. So we have in addition to the subsidy programmes we have from the state level or the federal level, we have a local subsidy programme for Freiburg for our citizens and house owners where they can get subsidies if they want to have an insulation of the roof or new windows or even solar panels now. So we try to have a mixed strategy, we define high standards for new buildings, for the existing buildings we cannot define standards, so we try to have a pull strategy in addition to the regulations on the state and federal level we try to have our local standards. And the other thing is that now we also have to, it's not only enough to get the energy demand down, but we have to think of where comes the heating demand from and in former times we used to have several sectors in the energy field like mobility, industry, private households, enterprises, but now we have the coupling of sectors that means we have the technology at hand to get everything from renewable electricity, which means that electricity, renewable power has really gained an importance. So we have a so-called master plan heat for the whole city, worked out with the expertise from engineers, different engineers and we try to divide the city in certain areas, the central area where the housing is very dense, we put a focus on district heating, which must be decarbonised in the long run and in the outskirts of the city where the building is not so densely, we put a focus on heat pumps, so that means first get the heating demand down as much as you can, as much as law allows you and secondly try to substitute the fossil energy, which is also in Frybox still in the system, we have still lots of natural gas in the system with heat pumps in the areas where the district heating might be too costly because it's a huge investment to put these tubes underground and in the inner part of the city where it's densely the building is very dense, the structure, we have distant district heating systems underground and try to put as much renewable energy into the system as we can and living in the upper Rhine valley, we also have some hope that we will be able to to tap geothermal energy because this is an area where it might be valuable. I hope this could answer part of the question. Absolutely, you've answered all of my questions and more, thank you very much. A very brief follow-up before I move on to another area, first of all it's interesting that Frybox is using contractual terms to go beyond existing legislation so that you have more freedom to increase standards, but my question relates to the source of heat, the decarbonised heat. It sounds like district heating is being used in urban areas and heat pumps are used in more rural areas where the density is lower. That's a very interesting observation. I wonder if you could talk us through, I guess, the engineering rationale or the technical reasons for this being the case? Yes, this is not already the state of the art, this is the goal, this is our strategy that the municipal council has decided on with this master plan heat. We are going step by step in this direction but the goal is not to have district heating everywhere because it's costly and especially the refurbishment going on and new standards going on. The return of investment for putting a system of tubes underground district heating system will be less and less though we have to really stick to the areas where we have district heating already and try to connect the grids underground and put a stress on more decentralised approaches like heat pumps which are fueled with renewables mostly from solar panels but also wind energy or we have also a small amount of hydropower and biomass energy in the system and we try to have this mixed strategy and we work hand in hand with our local energy utility so that we have a mixed strategy. We have already a huge district heating system in the inner part of the city, we try to connect the different grids sometimes it's difficult because a part of the grid belongs to the university, the clinic of the university which still uses other technology so combining the grids might be also a tricky and a challenge but we think that it's easier, we hope that we will get geothermal heat into the system and the rest must come also from big heat pumps or from renewables and this is quite a challenge because there's still a lot of natural gas in the heating sector. Okay yes very interesting I have one more question before I bring in other members what you are discussing requires collaboration between different agencies and institutions because so many different agencies have different responsibilities. What are the institutions in Freiburg that have been key to the successful delivery of net zero? Is this all about local government or has there been a close working partnership between local government and federal government? Yes this is always nice you can go a little bit back in time because the tradition of that energy issues are so important and also a public debate about this is really in the 70s we call it our big bang of our environmental movement when people from the city and the local farmers around protested successfully against a nuclear power plant that was supposed to be built close to Freiburg and they were successfully and from this success the public debate is energy is an important issue and we can have an impact on politics so we have the we are lucky and sometimes it's also very exhausting to have a population this citizens here in this city that are very interested very committed to energy issues and that they said okay if we don't want nuclear power what is it that we want then in the 80s it was the resources since the 90s since the real conference it's climate action that but there's a very sometimes controversial debate between the the citizens and the administration and we have lots of stakeholders that are here in Freiburg like the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems also international renowned institutions that can contribute and no institution here can really survive without being committed to this to these issues because also in the municipal council across all the political parties maybe apart from the AFD that we have unfortunately now for two years not very environmentally committed party but all the other parties are there's always a consensus about climate protection and sustainability and that makes it easy but having a population that is very self confident and very powerful that also as you must go faster the budget is not big enough it also pushes us it criticizes us and the media are always mirror of that so this is sometimes tiring for an administration but I think consensus sometimes is overrated the worst thing for a city is that if the people don't care so being committed and quarrelling with the administration and having controversial debates also sometimes in the public this is good because it creates an energy and from this energy this transformation process which is very very hard and the administration is not very agile sometimes it's a little bit like this so we need a population we need self confident citizens that say we put a pressure on you go ahead the next election is around the corner go ahead and we have this very controversial situation but I think it's a fruitful situation and naturally not only the citizens but many institutions the university is a hub of information and also of new development and we try to get the most out of this situation which is sometimes controversial but it's always fruitful I think that's fascinating thank you very much I'm sure my colleagues will want to pick up on some of the issues you've raised already so let me bring in one of my colleagues mark ruskell who is joining us remotely mark over to you please thanks very much really interesting to hear your evidence this morning francisco and can I just pick up on you at your last point about how engaged citizens are in fryburg and can you can you talk me through what the formal mechanisms are for engaging citizens I mean it because there is a danger that with some issues that there can be what we call an English you know consultation fatigue where people just are constantly asked about public policy but what sort of mechanisms do you have for engaging citizens are there citizens assemblies or particular referendums or discussions on particular issues how does it how does it manifest itself yeah we have a tradition of some instruments and now at the moment it's really speeding up so we have now we have enough facing a variety of new formats of citizen participation but what has a strong tradition is that in all the committees of the municipal council there are always people from institutions and experts expertise from outside the municipal council that can discuss and contribute even if the decision is taken in the council later on so we try to get as much expertise in this process before and we have also referendums for instance very controversial things which are also from the sustainability point of view controversial we build a new soccer stadium and we build a plan a new a whole new city district because Freiburg is a city that is very had a very high life quality which is famous popular university city many people move here not only students young people but also people who retire they say oh if I'm going to spend the rest of my life I'd like to be in a nice surroundings so having a population which is increasing whereas in eastern parts of Germany population is decreasing this uses conflicts land use conflicts resources conflicts and building a totally new city district naturally and large is our our carbon footprint we use land use resources we will use lots of gray energy so this was a controversial debate also in the municipal council and we said this is such an important decision we ask the whole population everybody can vote and only when the rather significant majority said yeah this new city district should be built then we said okay we have a climate neutrality concept this will be a new city district where nothing will be burnt all the heat electricity will come from renewables and waste a waste energy from from from sewage from wastewater and so and the new soccer stadium it was the same it's a climate neutral stadium with lots of panels on the roof but nevertheless it's gray energy it's a space that is used so also this was such an important decision that it was a referendum with the whole population and the citizens also it's not only offered by the by the administration but the citizens can claim a referendum they can say if they get enough votes I don't know two thousand or five thousand I don't have the exact number they can also they have the right to demand a referendum and now we have naturally we have these movements like extinction rebellion of Fridays for future and many citizens group that have a strong impact and build up also their own expertise and ask the administration why this and not this why are you not going fast enough and we have especially on the transport mobility sector we have a so it was in germany it was called mobility it's enchant citizens really put ask the others and they they put a vote on it so it really moved the administration so they were working now a climate mobility plan at the moment and we have two initiatives one with the bordering counties how frybok and the two bordering counties could get 100% renewables and this is citizens representatives from the two counties and the city working together on this plan and confronting the administration afterwards and also the climate and child which means it's kind of like a referendum for climate protection so there is a lot of it's like a biodiversity of initiatives but I think we are in such a situation of urgent climate action it's a I think in Germany we had the pandemic now we have this horrible war in Ukraine but the elephant in the room is climate action we cannot put this aside and say we first we take the urgent problems and then we take off take on this problem again so I think this commitment of the citizens and this pressure being put on the administration mirrors the importance that this issue has for for our life for our future and also if you talk about climate justice already for many countries that aren't as rich as we are and as well of given the consideration that we have a carbon whoxuck historically that is ways high on our shoulders so I think it's it's it's it's hard for the administration to handle this because naturally we are we have to stick to the law we have certain mechanisms that must be followed we have to prove things and counter prove things we cannot rush in sometimes the people say you're so slow you are like a like a snail or a turtle but I think naturally we we are part of the executive we are part of this this system and we don't have a better system yet but we can get we can take this energy and try to to make something fruitful and and maybe really get some more pressure on climate action because if we don't act fast much faster than we did even in frybok we will get these turning points and the future will not be funny not even here in frybok climate change is happening also here we had years when our river fell dry already here it's great to hear how you're harnessing that energy from the citizens and something we can we can certainly learn from here in scotland I think can I ask you then also about the the sustainability goals that you have I think those have been in place for for a long time now how do those influence policymaking do you have a kind of sustainability framework that you apply to the policies or how do they influence the individual discussions that politicians and others are having yeah we have a staff unit for sustainable sustainable development also it's a sustainability management and we we have our own goals defined and decided on by the municipal council in very close to these sdgs the united nations that I think 2015 the problem with the sustainability goals is that we have I think we are not it's not a single problem in frybok but all over the place it's also sdgs is that they don't go all in harmony we have different sdgs and the very very tricky thing is that they are not equal we have something like life conditions and we have something we we are the ground we walk on the water we drink the air we breathe the temperature we have to deal with and we have other things that can base on these things and it's very difficult to to to tell the people and told all also the different offices in the administration that we have to to safeguard our our our the preconditions of life and then we add on the economy and the social issues and so on and we don't have yet a mechanism how to deal with conflicts between these sdgs because it's very easy to define for education for for housing for water resources for climate protection for social justice for education in general so that it's not connected with your social background what job you get it's very easy to define the goals what is really difficult is to to get a prioritisation and sometimes also working in the climate action sector we are confronted with the attitude are you you think you are the you rule the world because you think you are so important but we are all equal important and it's it's very difficult to to say this might be that it's it's worthwhile putting your brain and your heart and your action into every field of action but if we if we destroy the the ground we are walking on our life three conditions then we can work out cultural concepts social concepts as much as we want it it won't it won't last so we have this magic triangle of sustainability like social issues economical issues ecological issues but it's not it's not equal important we have to safeguard the preconditions of life here in also in middle Europe and if we don't do this the other concepts cannot jump in and this so I think this is the the problem with sustainability goals that it's we don't we still lack a mechanism how in a way that it's accepted by all the stakeholders prioritize things and say let's concentrate on on safeguarding our life conditions and then everything is built on that but if we if we neglect the ground we are walking on then all the good concepts won't be won't work so I think this is also a problem in Frybox since if you look in our SDGs they are all wonderful every resistability goal is wonderful tax income tax revenue for the city in order we can build kindergartens and repair the streets and the bridges and everything but where does this does these taxes come from how much do we pay in ecological money to get this revenue all these things are very very difficult and they are also difficult here can you give me a specific example of where there's perhaps been conflict between those general development goals and how that was resolved is it ultimately for politicians to resolve that or I think it's it's not really faced by politics here because also here in Frybox we tend to be happy with the goals and the sustainability goals we have they are out of question they are they are good and it's always worthwhile to try to achieve them and the politicians also the not only the administration but also the politicians they are they have a hard time confronting these goal conflicts and they have a hard time to say what is more important and more important because we have lobby groups also here for every field of action so to say so I think that it's not really it's not really seen and we try to stick to the goals which are good and say we have all these like in a catalogue we have all these goals and it's we have we put them all together and stir around and this is sustainability but this this is not how it works and this is still the task to do also here to to to put the priorities right and not having the message that other fields of action are less important or less less fascinating or less worthwhile working but we have to get the priorities clear but they are not it's not really a conflict it's not really on the table it's rather a little bit in the background okay thanks for that I'm going to move on to another question I was interested to hear earlier that you're a forester on by backgrounds and can you say a little bit more about how municipal forests are helping to achieve Freiburg's net zero targets but also to to restore your your biodiversity as well yes yes I'm a forester and I really love the forest but going to the city administration meant I didn't have to leave Freiburg working with the state administration would have meant that I had to move around the whole country for the next 20 years so I said I leave the forest a little bit but I'm still I still have to do with our forest office here in Freiburg we have a local forest about 5000 hectares lowland forest and up in the black forest that is part of our city territory up to 1200 meters and we really try to manage it or we manage it on an ecological basis that that means already since the mid 90s we are have the certificate by the FSC forestry stewardship council that means we don't do a huge clear cutting we don't use pesticides we limited the not indigenous species to a certain percentage and we try to combine the the the social benefits like that we naturally also forestry people can go hiking or mountain biking and doing sports or just for recreation we also value the social function of the forest but we want to produce timber we produce some 35 000 cubic metres every year on a sustained yield basis and this is also revenue but naturally the forest as a whole doesn't make profit because the ecological function or the ecological benefits and the social benefits they also the infrastructure is costly for these things but it's it's money comes in for for timber also and we really try to to value this sustainability has a long traditionally for traditional forestry since since 200 years it was fixed by law that the forest is managed on a sustained yield basis and it's also a carbon sink that means not only it's we try to push building and construction by the promote building and construction by with timber we have a small subsidy programme that house owners or investors here in Freiburg can get funding from the administration if they make innovative housing projects with with timber or with a certain percentage of timber sometimes you have to combine the materials also and we would make a balance for the forest how much carbon is stored in the stand in the standing stock of trees but also how much carbon is substituted because if I build with timber I don't use steel or glass or concrete especially concrete which has a huge huge grey energy backpack we call it this is concrete is really potlent cement especially is really a problem in building much worse than bricks for instance and we also say it's a temporary sink because for instance our old cathedral in the inner part of the city it's an old cathedral from the middle ages there are fur logs inside that store the COT for 800 years already that miraculously survived the second world war so the the CO2 from the middle ages is still stored in this timber so we think pallets and burning biomass it's not the first choice we have to put as much because everybody talking about sequestration and getting the the co2 from the atmosphere but the only working mechanism we have is what nature invented millions of years ago is the photosynthesis this is the the proven mechanism that works and we should combine our technology and use as much carbon sinks in timber substituting other materials and building with timber not burning timber and so we have a small part of our huge carbon balance we have for the city we have for our forest we had by experts made a carbon balance that balances and counts all these functions the forest had but we in Germany we have a big discussion which is very romantic I don't know whether Germans are more romantic than Scottish people but we say some people say leave the forest alone leave them leave it be forestry is violence the trees they scream and don't go with the chainsaw or something like this and we say no we we have this tradition of sustainability we we have mixed stands we don't have monocultures we have this Douglas fir which comes from the US which is very valuable and grows a little bit faster than the indigenous species but we can work the silver culture out in a way that it gets will be mixed stands with lots of broadleaf trees also we can have a beautiful forest that is home for many species and produces timber and timber is a it's not a solution for climate action but it can really contribute to this issue and fortunately the our very critical population still doesn't question forestry here in Freiburg which is really an asset because there are other cities where they they around the city they they abandon forestry they just leave the forest be and say be romantic and go for a hike and we don't hurt the trees something like this but a forest you don't look at the single tree you look at the forest as it's all and I think managing it is a vice thing to do obviously role but do you see a role for more sustainable supply chain for wood fuel biomass for heating at all or is that a you know diminishing part of the internet well there is a sector also it's maybe unfair because naturally some some enterprises are invested in this technology and naturally burning biomass is better than burning fossil energy because the co2 which is admitted is recent co2 which has been stored only years ago but I think in the long run with the technology of fuel cells and heat pumps everything will be renewable electricity and we should not burn raw material apart from from maybe waste waste material if you have a sawmill and you have a certain amount of waste like a palp something like this or a wafer these things you put in a wafer board these things I think you can but it's better to put them in a in a plywood or in a wafer board than burn it because burning means releasing the co2 and the best thing is not releasing any any co2 from photosynthesis and try to store it in as many intelligent ways as you can but I know that in the in the past decades it was seen differently and many people invested in a pallet heating system in their home thinking they do something good and I think it's not good to have the appropriate strategy change and also it must be also for those people who concentrate on maybe building pallet heating systems to have a transition process also you cannot just change direction like this but strategically I think we should not burn timber we have a we collect all the organic waste from all our households put it in a in a power plant and produce biogas by that and we make use of of organic waste but it's burning timber it's not not a strategic option for the future I think okay and just finally can I ask you about the um and it links to the work on forest um I saw that you're doing a lot of work to develop biomes um which I think we would we would interpret that in English as more nature networks um have there been particular biomes excuse me I didn't get the word it would you allow it being biomes what does this biomes um well I suppose it we call that so nature networks so development of um of restoration of nature on a on a landscape scale on to ask what what role the municipality had in that and are there issues around land ownership if you have some land owners that may be for traditional agricultural use of land compared to maybe rewilding or creating new habitats on a much larger scale yeah I think I hope I get the word right we call it biotopes it's a certain areas in my left hand sorry I hope I got the question right we have biotopes in the forest which is easy because the forest is mostly owned by the city so the forest office is in charge so we have a very elaborated system of parts of the forest that are so-called reference areas where we don't do anything and just watch nature in order to adapt our management system to natural processes under the real time conditions and we have forest biotopes and we also have areas of where we try to leave the old dead trees because the significant difference between a virgin forest and a managed forest is the amount of dead timber and this is really very important for lots of plants and animal species so we have a network all over the forest of dead timber areas and reference areas and biotopes and the agriculture is more difficult because we do down to the farming ourselves we re-rented to tenants and to have an impact on the management is not very easy because the law for good practice in agriculture comes from the federal level or the state level and it's not so easy to exceed that so we try to have always a mixed strategy that means that we want less rent for renting the land if the people switch to ecological production or ecological farming we try to give some incentives and financial incentives we cannot prescribe that as a municipal law because we have to stick to the state and federal law but we try to build up incentives for the farmers so that it's worthwhile for them also maybe less to do less intensified farming leave more spaces for flowers and it's like for the for the older insects we need special areas so we try to put some incentives because we cannot make the the regulatory framework comes from the from the state level or the federal level okay thanks very much about you convener next up Liam Kerr Liam please thank you convener good morning franziska you detailed earlier on in response to the convener some well-established energy efficiency subsidy programmes for homeowners can you detail how those work is it a grant or a loan what proportion of the work is funded by the subsidy and our councils have some very severe funding challenges so from where does the grant or loan come in fryburg yeah it's it's not a loan it's a grant and the the the thing is that we have funding systems from the state level or the federal level where it's always said if this measure is being funded by someone else this doesn't work but our local funding system can be accumulated accumulated that means if you get funding from the federal or the state level you can get our grant nevertheless and it's it's not much but sometimes you it's all um sometimes you have a situation where a little money some 5000 euro already gives the impulse to invest in this in this like insulating your roofs having new windows having a naturally we try to do we have free energy counselling for every citizen and we try to encourage the house owners to do as much as they can not only new windows not only the the basement and the roof but maybe also the facade which is tricky it's costly and you always have to build up the scaffolds and this is a totally other issue the the craftsmen or craftswomen who do the job this is a huge challenge we have but we have grants and it's not very much money sometimes it's 3000 5000 10 000 euro for it depends what you want to do and you apply for that and the money comes from the municipal budget so it's really money of the city which is given away for free and if people invest in energy saving so to say and this goes to the citizens and last last autumn the municipal council also decided on a so-called climate action offensive we have 12 million this is part of my job we have 12 millions of additional budget that should be invested for climate action in the administration in the housing sector in the companies everywhere this is right in the process of evaluating all the projects that have been have applied for this funding I'm very grateful so to reflect back so it's a grant from the city level that pays a proportion but certainly not all of the work needed on a related note you have an affordable housing master plan and build ecological and sustainable factors in from the start of your affordable housing can you help me understand who funds that affordable house building because if we accept that greener materials and greener modifications can be more expensive what incentives are in place to encourage people to build those modifications and is it fryberg who funds those um no we don't need to fund those because there is we have this credit unstyled for wider power the k kfw which is from this from the state level in berlin and it does a lot of funding in the in the building sector especially in in the in the past time new buildings with the new government we have in berlin now a new coalition they also want to put us focus on refurbishment projects but there is a lot of funding and we had an expertise done about how much really if you look a little bit at the lifecycle of a new building how costly it is really to build a reasonable energy standard and our experts found out that it's not really much more costly it and if you look at the at the return of investment you get in a city like fryberg with the prices being so high it's really affordable also for the investors to build these standards and we tried to um it's difficult to to be on a confrontative course so we had a round table with all the real estate people here in fryberg and had an agreement about certain energy standards in the new building sector and so um we think that with the funding that comes from the state level uh if we take into consideration that there is not much more additional costs for a standard that uses up to i think 15 to 20 kilowatts hour per square meter and year so this is um the we call it our fryberg efficiency standard but it's this is being funded by the kfw from berlin from the state level and with uh if you count in this funding the additional costs for a reasonable building standard aren't so high this is the experience we have made thank you very much this is extremely helpful uh one final thing franzisco fma fryberg is almost exactly the same size as my home of abradin uh now abradin is traditionally one of the lowest funded councils in scotland so it has to make some very difficult choices about where it will spend its money can you help the committee understand how fryberg is funded and if it has similar funding pressures uh how it decides to prioritise green initiatives over perhaps some of the other things that are perhaps as important yeah fryberg has always been a poor city apart from the middle ages we had a small rich period when there was silver found in the black forest close to a year so that was the time when the cathedral was built but i think the last 200 years fryberg has always been a poor city we don't have also transformation processes like industries going broke and we have to deal with these things so we never were rich so we always had to be clever or try to make the utmost from limited financial resources we have the university which has a also is an employee employer and we have some industry in the biotech sector and the health sector is important for our economy but we don't have big industries like stuttgart which has the car industry and it's really rich they can make they can really invest money so fryberg never had much but nevertheless we think that it's also it for us also we do city marketing and being trying to really achieve something on the field of sustainability and climate action is also a marketing thing because we see that people are very interested here people move here also small startups move here because they think it's a favourable environment so we think this being sustainable or trying to achieve things is has also an economic return of investment not not as big and as high and actually also we have this new soccer stadium because also our soccer club is very famous in Germany it's a it's a underdog club very low funded but very successful and also they also the old stadium has had lots of affordable type panels so it's also a kind of the framing you do for your work and I think trying to achieve sustainability also has an economic benefit for the city not big but it is there and we think we want to ensure the future for our citizens we don't want to only get tax revenue but we try to to to market these things that can be a blueprint for other cities we tried naturally also to learn from other cities and other initiatives but we were always forced to prioritise and it's not so that it's always it always goes in the sustainable direction we also have situations where we say okay we have to to to block this area and the carbon footprint gets higher but there will be so much tax income from this company we we want it and we try to to encourage companies that fit in this area life sciences health sector sustainability solar smart housing we try to to address these companies come to frybook because they they fit in our our profile they fit in this idea and then there are this like a let me see I like the English word I so make some work and it would be in German there mutual profits for this approach but there has never been much money so it's it's always also a quarreling also climate protection climate action is not running on itself we have the the theater wants money the new ice hockey stadium wants money everybody needs the resources and it's not an easy debate in the municipal council i'm very grateful thank you very much thank you very much Liam next up is Colette Stevenson Colette please thank you convener and good morning franziska it's so lovely to hear about fryberg's approach to an urban sustainable city and also I understand it's the sunniest place to live in Germany as well so it sounds like a lovely place to live I wanted to ask about procurement and it states in fuelbird fryberg's website that the sustainability of municipal properties and procurement has been a key consideration for many years what changes did you make in your organisation and your working culture to establish a programme of energy efficiency improvements and changes to procurement practices as well well this is a huge field of action i have many many instruments are working in this field of action we try to procure things which have a certificate sometimes there it's it's detailed so that there is in the in the procurement chain there is no social injustice there is no child's work somewhere over the place we try to procure recycled thing rather than new things like this the most popular thing is actually paper because still we are we are online but we still use lots of paper the administration we have not yet let go and we try to put into consideration how this is produced how how the things are produced where they come from and all these social issues also but also ecological issues try to encourage recycling but it comes also to how we use our working space how efficiently do we use our offices our public buildings how that we have the bicycles for for the people who can if you go to meeting to another town hall then you can use a bicycle that is owned by the city we have electric cars e-mobility for also going to and fro so we try to have an infrastructure for the the people that work in the administration that is as sustainable as possible we have this new town building where I work here town hall is a climate neutral with a mixed concept of heat pumps and panels and we try to encourage to all the people who are employed like not having too much temperature in their room saving energy but also shared offices as much as possible naturally you always have to weigh these things with social friend conditions they're not putting too much pressure on the people who work here but I think it's a procurement and minimizing your footprint on this sector is a approach not with one strategy but with many smaller strategies that combined in this field that as an administration we naturally also have the power of a of a big consumer and what we consume has an impact on the production and we try to to use that we have in the in the biological food in the canteens where the people go for for for lunch as much as possible we try to say this is big we are not 100% vegetarian but there's always half of it is vegetarian and the other side is always declared where the meat comes from that it's not coming from three times around the world and so we try to but it's many small fields of action that combine in the footprint we as an administration have on the field of procurement so we try to combine small small smashes to to but we could be better I think we are we're not 100% yet no thank you and it's great to hear that in terms of like local supply chains and procurement do you use actually measure like in terms of what use you know procure locally so there's that supply chain visibility there this is very difficult indeed and I can explain it on the example of of food where do we buy the food for our canteens not only in the town halls but also in the schools and the law in Germany I don't know how it is in Scotland but in Germany we have a law that we can if we if we ask enterprises to make us an offer for for procuring things we can say we want only biological potatoes but it's forbidden to say we want only regional potatoes because this is in against European law that there should not that all the parts of the European Union should have the same possibility to sell their products so it's at the moment we are still wrecking our brains how we can put a stress on regional production because we want to support the farmers in the region and we would like because this has a transport cost has a huge co2 impact on the product biological grown carrot that comes from Peru well it's a thing but it's easy to say please offer make us only offers if it's a biological carrot but it's at the moment lawfully it's not able to say it must come from the region because this discriminates all the farmers not farming in this region and at the moment we try to to work out systems like any people who run a canteen or do the catering here for the schools they must offer and we call this food education for the kids they must organise field trips to a farm and by this we hope to have the effect that these are products from the region but it's indirectly and it's a little bit like a creative outcome because we cannot say we want to buy only vegetable or potatoes from the region this is at the moment still discrimination and the law and it's maybe also nicely thought but i think to to have regional chains of products there should be another possibility to organise that okay that is really interesting thanks very much no further questions convener thank you collect very much uh next up is natalie don who's joining us online natalie over to you please thank you convener and good morning francesca here evidence so far this morning has been really really useful and really helpful so thank you yeah i want to to touch on issues around transport so it's really impressive that i think it's 79% of all trips are made by bicycle bus train or on foot eddie eddie okay so it's going up wow so i'm just wondering on it can you expand on how fryberg's co-ordinated urban development and transport policy was initially developed and can i ask specifically how you ensured that the required shift away from private transport to eco mobility was supported and accepted by all the all your citizens yes um this is really important because naturally uh how i organised transport on mobility has a huge impact on the climate balance but also a huge impact on safety in the city accidents and the huge impact on life quality like noise and also air quality so the how we organised mobility how we organised traffic has many many impacts naturally i'm most interested in the energy issues but and so people are also interested in how we organise mobility and we have first of all after the world war there was the decision whether we tear away all the tram lines that have been in the ground since before the world war from the 30s and fryberg decided though we leave this tram line so we have a it's the backbone of our public transport system is are the trams or light rail i don't know what's the right word tram tram trams okay okay whereas other cities like strasburg in france which has a green mayor now they have at a very high cost they had to put the trams in the street which is a rather big investment so fryberg never abandoned the street cars and the trams and this is very very comfortable because it's a very fast mean and then they also we have if there's a crossroads the tram has always priority which means that it's not only ecologically sound but it's fast and comfortable because people don't use public transport because they want to save the world or most of them don't but because they want to go from A to B fast and comfortable and so by by this organising priority for trams that means that from the outskirts of the city you are faster with the tram inside in the city centre than with your car and this is also something that people can really feel they can live this experience this public transport is fast and comfortable and naturally we have to combine this this inner system of of tram lines with buses in the in the outskirts and then since the 80s we have a regional ticket which had really a huge impact on behaviour of commuters also we have one ticket and you can use all the transport systems in the two bordering counties and the city and I with one ticket I can go from up up up in the black forest where on Sunday I can take my whole family with one ticket close until I go down in the Rhine valley close to the French border and this is really very comfortable for people and it really convinces you also commuters because in Germany going with your own car is something like a religion I think it's like using arms in the US having your own car and being able to go everywhere is a very difficult issue which you can see that on the state level we are still don't have a speed limit on the highways not even the the new government with the green minister but not for traffic anyway so it's psychologically not not easy to switch from your own car to other means of transport and the one thing is must be fast and comfortable and also connections between buses and trams must be thought of intelligently and we have a huge system of bike lanes and we are enlarging this for high speed bike lanes where you can really and safety is an issue with all this e-bikes booming at the moment but naturally it's one thing it must be fast and comfortable and that it must be trendy the framing the social framing of what kind of traffic mean to you use is very important so in front of we succeeded in having a standard symbol is having a trendy bike a good bike not your car anymore and there are other countries or sometimes I have visitors group and they say if by by us only students and poor people go with the bicycle if you have enough money you have your car the car is the social status it's sexy and here in Freiburg having a fancy bike is sexy so far that there are some criminals are specialized on stealing expensive cars from the basement in certain city areas where they suspect the fancy cars in the basement so that means that changing behaviour is naturally it's your it's your brain that works but it's your heart that works also so having you have to frame using different traffic opportunities that it that you are doing something good but it's also it gives you a good image of being sustainable of being future oriented of being in a way somebody avant garde also so many people also white collar workers they go they commute with a bike and many enterprises they have showers in their in their office buildings now where you can change your clothes it's like some people also come running from afar I don't know but if you go with your bike naturally this has changed a little bit with e-bikes where you don't get so sweaty but normally you have also many offices count on people coming with a commuting with a bicycle and offer the necessary infrastructure for that so I think it's a mixture of many things and you need the infrastructure and the comfort but also you need a story and an image to promote new ways of behaviour because the human being is sticks to old things we we don't have a culture of stopping we don't have a culture of changing things you have to think out good good methods for that absolutely no thank you so much for that I think I agree when I've been to two different countries in Europe I think the relationship with bikes it's always amazed me and having things like that so that people can have showers and stuff in work it's just such a different way of thinking it's definitely the way forward you actually touched on what my next question was going to move on to and that was the regional ticketing system the integrated ticketing system so I was just wondering if you you could tell me any difficulties that were had in terms of getting that up and running so how successful where you can get in all of the transportation companies to accept the system where just one ticket can be used across all the modes of public transport and are the transport operators publicly owned or are they private if you could just expand a little on that please yeah they're mostly publicly owned by the counties or by the city naturally it's heavily subsidised also as a transport you never earn money with that but the passenger numbers go up and up it's it's publicly owned so we have to to negotiate with the bordering counties and find this common platform of this one regional ticket but I think everybody found that they profit from it also the counties because also they have less problems with traffic jam and parking places when people move to and throw with with public transport so but it was not so so difficult and I must say that how the money is divided that this regional pass at the moment still costs something at the moment in the whole of Germany we have this this incentive by the new government that for nine euros a month you can go everywhere in Germany with public transport you can throw go with slow running trains from here to Berlin on nine euros a month it's an experiment for three months so this is a layer that goes over our regional ticket right now but normally I am I think the the revenue from this ticket is being divided between in a ratio that is to the investment for the infrastructure because naturally we as a city in the middle of these two counties have to invest more in traffic infrastructure than the counties they mostly have buses they don't have light rail or trams so I think the money is divided proportionally the income from the ticket and we have a committee that meets regularly and discusses which lines should be enlarged where maybe we plan putting the tram lines also a little bit in the countryside over the city boundaries so to say in order to get more people on there and there's a special committee that meets every three or two months and where all these strategic questions are discussed investing in traffic especially in tram infrastructure is very very costly buses not as much with buses we are now in this fuel transformation process could it be hydrogen buses which I would not say but maybe e-buses and how we get enough renewable energies because we don't want e-buses for nuclear power or for natural gas burning so all these things are also taken into consideration and naturally it might not be forgotten is that we also want to be a city for pedestrians we don't want especially with the demographic development many people like me getting older and older we also want to be a city of short ways where you don't have to have a car or don't have to go always with the tram to do your shopping especially your grocery shopping so we should not neglect pedestrians you want a city where the public space has a quality that you want to go there to walk there it's not like your path for a pedestrian is like this and the cars go roaring by or the speedbikes go roaring by we have but I think all over the place a growing conflict also being with pedestrians and people going with these small electric kudos or with bikes we have to say a city is a place where people live and it must be able it must be wonderful and comfortable to go by foot also if we talk about health issues naturally walking by foot is the basic mobility in a city and it should be comfortable and safe and so we are also proud that from the 80s to the 90s the percentage in the modal split of pedestrians really declined but now it has gone up a little bit again and this is also one goal in city planning that it's a city where you can walk around and you like to walk around so apart from all this moving quick from here to there okay thank you so much for your answers there I have no further questions convener thank you very much Natalie a final question is coming from Monica Lennon who's joining us online Monica please thank you convener good morning friends I get it's been a real pleasure to hear your contribution today so thank you and perhaps the committee could come for the visits sometime in the future in our inquiry into local government we've heard a lot of complaints about how slow it can be when councils make decisions in particular around the planning process so really interested to hear that inside your city planning office is seen as a think tank and agenda setter could you tell us a bit more about that and how do you ensure in the municipality that that work is widely recognised and is appreciated and that the staff feel motivated clearly you feel very proud of the work that you're doing is that feeling that the staff also share and do people want to work in the municipality who wants to work in the municipality is a very important and difficult question because we are competing with many other employers but I think the planning office is very important and it's it's crucial for a city to be to become sustainable because it's not only building houses and saying the street the cars go there and there but it's really safeguarding the life quality and enabling all the others fields of action like in the in the planning process we must look where do we need solar panels do we need to have a district infrastructure do we need a little piece of ground for energy central for hydro hydrolysis for the green hydrogen for instance so the the planning office naturally it looks it's also has ambition that the city is architecturally beautiful and there's enough innovation and spectacular buildings but it's enabling a sustainable city because it can ensure the infrastructure that is necessary and combine it with the with sustainable buildings but without neglecting the the the cultural heritage without neglecting also these aesthetical point of views but it's not easy we have lots of discussions we for example have lots of discussions about green roofs for adaptation and solar panels we need for climate change so it's always a process of weighing the different issues and the the art is finding a good compromise finding a good thing and the planning office has to it's like playing with all these different things and putting together like a mosaic that in the end results but I think the planning office is very very important and because you cannot say we do this at any cost or we just neglect how a house looks like and this is a challenge also for the architects for instance to build energy sufficient or energy efficient houses sometimes they say oh the windows are so small and the walls are so thick and it's not beautiful architecture but I think it's a challenge in for creativity and I think this also leads to a new self-confidence in the planning department because they say without us a sustainable city will not work we enable these infrastructure and we but we safeguard also the cultural heritage which in a medieval city is very important and we work creatively in combining these issues but it's also this is not running by itself it needs a lot of discussion a lot of exchange a lot of information and yeah but I think in the end this challenge is being taken especially by the people also here at Frybook in this office. Thank you very much. I know we don't have a lot of time, convener, so I'll pass back to you but it would be interesting to hear from Fryberg in the future about the planning workforce because we have questions in Scotland. We've seen a reduction in our planning workforce. It would be interesting to see some comparison but in the interest of time I'll pass back to you, convener. Thank you very much Monica. Yes, we are tight for time but I would like to ask Francisco a very specific and brief question about how Fryberg's climate plans are financed. Do you benefit from multi-year financing in the sense that you know what you're financing from central government is going to be over a three or five year period or is the finance set on an annual basis so that you don't have a lot of visibility? Unfortunately climate action is still not yet a duty. In Germany we have a law that obliges the local authorities to do some things and then we have the sector of voluntary things and it's strange enough climate action is still on the voluntary side that means the cities are not obliged to do climate action but we don't get a regular funding for that. There are funding programmes by the state level or the federal level but we have to apply for that always. We have to apply for that and so we had to finance our efforts on the field of climate action always mostly from our own budget which is then competing with other issues. I think that especially the state level should do more. We have a climate protection law now in our state but in Wittenberg which obliges people to have a mandatory obligation to have solar panels on any new buildings from June of this year and next year also if you retrofit your roof but only now in 2022 comes this duty to have a solar panel that could have been much earlier. We would like to have as a local authority a little bit more support from the legislative level to have more funding but also more from the law more possibilities to push things faster ahead. There is no regular funding, we have to apply for programmes and most funding comes from the city budget and must be shifted from one field of action to climate action so this is not an easy debate either. Yes, I completely understand that that's a similar issue. I think that we're facing in Scotland that visibility of funding but Francisco that brings us to the end of our allocated time. Thank you very much for your insights this morning which have been extremely valuable. I hope you have enjoyed meeting with the committee. It would be great to keep in touch going forward. We will make sure we send you a copy of our report in this area when it's published later this year and it's been fantastic to hear your contributions this morning so thank you once again. Thank you and all the best and good luck for your efforts about climate action so we are all together in this one. Absolutely, thank you. Have a good day. Thank you very much. Bye bye. That concludes our public meeting and we will now move into private session. Thank you.