Excursions in and around Heidelberg

Overview

Please find all detailed information in the Detailed Program for Excursions.

Heidelberg Bahnstadt

Heidelberg Bahnstadt is one of the biggest urban development projects in Germany and the biggest passive house district of the world with an area of 116 hectares. Since 2008, an attractive mix of residential properties, science labs and offices, trade and cultural opportunities has been developed on the former rail yard of Heidelberg. Around 6,500 people will live here; another 6,000 people will work here. Climate protection is one of the main goals behind the concept of the Bahnstadt, which requires the buildings to achieve the passive house standard, conform to an energy saving concept and use of efficient and increasingly renewable district heating. For sustainable mobility, Heidelberg Bahnstadt offers a newly established 2.2 kilometers long tramline through the district, as well as 3.5 kilometers of bicycle path. The green roofs of the Bahnstadt improve the urban climate by retaining a higher percentage of rainwater within the district.

Electromobility in theory and practice

The VRD Foundation for Renewable Energy provides a fleet of electric vehicles (cars, mopeds and bicycles). The first input deals with the smart combination of different means of transport in order to travel as environmentally friendly as possible. Afterwards the peculiarities and challenges of electromobility will be presented and systemic differences to combustion vehicles will be explained – practically and without many technical details. In the end you can have a ride with electric cars, an electric moped and an electric bicycle (pedelec).

Stadt-Land-Rad Project – A guided bicycle tour through Heidelberg

The focus of the Stadt-Land-Rad project is to bring children into contact with the fun of cycling, to get to know their own country better and to teach them how to use navigation technology in a playful way. The project is aimed at school classes of level 5 and 6 in secondary and grammar schools and is designed as a competition between several classes. The class that cycles the most kilometres per participant and answers most questions correctly wins and receives an attractive prize. The project was initiated by the ADFC Rhein-Neckar/Heidelberg with various partners and is financed by the city of Heidelberg. In this excursion the participants can discover Heidelberg on a guided bicycle tour and experience Stadt-Land-Rad in practice.

Wandelgarten and TransitionHouse – Local climate protection projects

This excursion leads to two climate protection projects in the Kirchheim district:
• The “Wandelgarten” is a neighborly community garden, with the focus on a life-style suitable for future, community and gardening according to permaculture methods.
• The “TransitionHouse” is a venue for events and inspiration. In workshops, film evenings, exhibitions and much more, visitors are encouraged to develop new sus-tainable habits that are not only forward-thinking, but also bring joy. The two projects are realised by Transition Town Heidelberg e. V., which is part of the worldwide Transition movement. They are funded in the “Short Paths to Climate Protec-tion” programme as part of the Federal Environment Ministry’s National Climate Protection Initiative. The idea for this funding programme was born at ICCA 2015.

Louise Otto School – A climate-neutral educational building

The Louise-Otto-Peter-Schule is a climate-neutral building in the area of educational buildings. The building envelope of the school is constructed according to the passive house standard. The remaining energy requirements for heat and electricity are provided by local producers. The heat is kept in the building by highly efficient heat recovery from the ventilation system and by highly insulated building components. The use of a heat pump and an ice storage tank in combination with solar air collectors ensures optimal use of the ambient heat. In addition, the ice storage tank can be used for passive cooling in summer, which ensures particularly energy-efficient operation. The realisation was financially supported by the nationwide support programme “Efficiency House Plus” for educational buildings in Germany.

FRANKLIN Village in Mannheim

In FRANKLIN, an area as big as the city center of Mannheim, a lively, sustainable urban quarter is being developed: a mix of living space with character, urban flair in the middle of greenery, job opportunities, leisure offers and educational facilities as well as shopping opportunities The development of Franklin is supplemented by a well thought-out traffic concept and direct access to the surrounding quarters, the city centre and nature.
FRANKLIN shows methods for sustainable mobility in the future including a research project for autonomous driving and sustainable building through high efficiency requirements.

Weinheim Garden Talks – Aspects of Climate Change

Despite the need to counteract and prevent the overheating of our cities by reopening and replanting areas, the number of so-called gravel gardens is increasing dramatically under the pretext of easy maintenance.
The terraced garden at Neuburg Monastery, in an exposed, sunny location, was watered only once in the hot and dry summer of 2018. There were no failures. It accommodates a large number of plant species that do not lose their attractiveness even under extreme conditions. Last year it was presented to a specialist audience at the Weinheim Garden Talks – Aspects of Climate Change (under the patronage of Prof. Cassian Schmidt).
It is located in the seclusion area of the monastery and is not open to the public. For the Climate Neighbourhoods the garden will be opened for this one time and a guided tour with information about plants, plant selection as well as an experience report will be offered.

Nachhaltiges Wirtschaften, B&S Service GmbH

Konrad Weiß is founder and owner of B&S Service GmbH, a company for the production of alarm and security systems with more than 30 employees. He incorporates his holistic thinking and acting into his entrepreneurial decisions, which led him to run the in-house biomass heating with self-produced Miscanthus reed and wood chips, and to visit corporate customers mostly with hybrid and electric cars, to be charged at the self-constructed solar carport on the company premises. Konrad Weiß is himself an enthusiastic cyclists and last autumn he once again set an example in the direction of emission reduction and climate protection with the purchase of an e-cargo bike. Weiß is very authentic in his sustainability-oriented thinking and acting and was awarded for the special composition and effectiveness of his systemically oriented “resource efficiency approaches” by the state of Baden-Württemberg.

Heidelberg Solarship

Powered by the power of the sun! While the ship glides gently and quietly, the passengers experience the most charming views of the city of Heidelberg.

The Heidelberger Brewery

The Heidelberg Brewery is part of the Sustainable Business Network in Heidelberg. This network promotes cross-company learning and the exchange of experience between SMEs in sustainability-related matters. In the field of energy efficiency in particular, it has already been possible to push ahead with the implementation of climate-friendly measures. The example of the brewery shows that by investing in process optimization (thin film evaporation), the cooking time could be reduced from 60 to 10 minutes, resulting in energy savings.