Follow-up report on the workshop "Sustainability in municipal cultural work"
On June 25, 2025, a follow-up workshop on the topic of "Sustainability in municipal cultural work" took place at the Galappmühle conference center in Kaiserslautern. On the initiative of the City of Kaiserslautern's Department of Culture, representatives of the Department of Culture, Kaiserslautern's independent cultural scene and other Kaiserslautern cultural institutions jointly examined cultural work in the municipality from different perspectives
After a welcoming address by Manfred Schulz (Mayor of Kaiserslautern) and Christoph Dammann (Head of the Cultural Department of the City of Kaiserslautern), Dr. David Maier presented the "Sustainability Strategy for Worms' Cultural Sector".
This was followed by a presentation of excerpts from André Gmür's (Managing Director of Kammgarn Kaiserslautern) master's thesis on "Sustainability at the Kammgarn Kaiserslautern cultural center - analysis and draft of a sustainability concept". Here, sustainability and sustainability in the cultural sector in general, as well as specifically in the cultural center Kammgarn Kaiserslautern are considered and the development of a sustainability concept, including the challenges and problems are discussed. Stefen Egler provided further insights into cultural work in Kaiserslautern with his report on various aspects of sustainability at the Museum Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern (MPK). Here too, both opportunities and hurdles and challenges relating to sustainability in day-to-day museum work were highlighted.
After a detailed look at many examples of cultural work in Worms and Kaiserslautern, we were able to support the event with an impulse about the work in the project "Open Digitization Alliance Palatinate II" as well as the research at the Chair of Sustainability Management. Topics included the development of the concept of sustainability and its various dimensions - ecological, economic, social - and the topics of corporate sustainability management.
After a joint lunch break, the interactive workshop phase began, which was based on the think-pair-share method. The participants worked in four groups on the following key questions:
- How is sustainability understood and currently implemented in the cultural sector?
- What connections exist between sustainability and their own work - especially in the area of tension with digitalization?
- What challenges make sustainable cultural work more difficult?
- Who are the key players in supporting and implementing sustainability in culture?
The groups discussed their ideas in depth and recorded the results on flipcharts. In the subsequent "poster walk", they presented their findings to each other. In a final work phase, the participants were able to assign these to the three dimensions of sustainability and the digitalization aspect and compile them in an overview matrix according to their priorities.
In the final plenary session, the central results were summarized on a joint poster and concrete proposals were discussed on the extent to which culture and the arts can make an active contribution to a sustainable transformation
The aim of the event was to gain a practical overview of the status quo of cultural work in Kaiserslautern with regard to sustainability, to identify key challenges and to discuss potential measures to promote sustainable transformation.
In particular, the desire for more exchange, institutional support and the stronger integration of sustainable principles into the day-to-day work and strategic processes of cultural institutions became apparent. To this end, the previous workshop laid an important foundation for the further development of sustainable cultural work in Kaiserslautern by facilitating an insightful exchange between cultural professionals, administration and academia.
We would like to thank you for organizing and inviting us to the workshop "Sustainability in municipal cultural work" and for the active cooperation of all participants and look forward to continuing to accompany the topic in our project!
