Middelfart is the most sustainable destination in Europe
The Danish municipality Middelfart became the winner of the 2022 Eurepean Destination of Excellence EDEN competition, for its smart and sustainable tourism practices and for its efforts to promote them in Europe. The EDEN competition addresses smaller tourism destinations, which can showcase their outstanding achievements in sustainability and inspire other tourism destinations in their green transition.
When Morten Westergaard pitched the candidacy for this prestiguous award he mentiones among otehr things also the succesful People’s Climate festival as well as the EMPOWER2.0 project in the village Føns. Something absolutely remarcable has happened there. While experts tell that district heating is something only feasible in urban contexts, the villagers were fed up with their fossile heating systems and developed their own village district heating system, first with wood pellets and now with two heat pumps connected to a borehole energy storage field.
Empowered Danish villagers can be very stubborn, and apparently very succesful, to replace oldfashioned fossil fuel with reliable and affordable sustainable alternatives. The municipality of Middelfart was the villagers ideal partner, and the EMPOWER 2.0 project gave it the European pilot role it deserved.