Climate Citizens’ Assembly in Gentofte

Municipalities can play an important role if Denmark is to embark on the green transition. Gentofte Municipality has embraced this responsibility and launched a citizens’ assembly for the residents of the municipality. The citizens’ assembly, which consists of a representative sample of Gentofte residents, will come up with suggestions on how citizens, associations, businesses, and the municipality can work together towards a sustainable transition in the municipality.

Gentofte’s municipal council has set the members of the citizens’ assembly the following task: “We need your help to imagine a future in Gentofte Municipality where we together transition to climate-neutral and sustainable practices in everyday life”.

We Do Democracy facilitates a Citizens’ Assembly process where representative citizens from the municipality prepare recommendations to the municipal council that answer this core question. Through a series of meetings and facilitated conversations, the citizens’ assembly will formulate the final recommendations, which will be passed on to the municipality.

We Do Democracy is the secretariat of the Citizens’ Assembly, facilitating and ensuring a good working process in the Citizens’ Assembly so that the participants can create a good collaboration and reach the final recommendations.

Out of the 30,000 invited citizens aged 18-99+, over 300 wanted to participate in the process. Of those, 36 representatively selected citizens will participate in the citizen assemblies over the fall of 2023 until the final presentation of recommendations in December at Gentofte City Hall. In their final recommendations, the members were very clear about giving politicians more courage for many of the difficult decisions facing the municipality.

Based on the recommendations of the Climate Citizens’ Assembly, the municipal council has initiated a process in which the civil service is now developing a climate plan based on the recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly. The climate plan will then be politically approved. On the project website, you can read more about the Citizens’ Assembly, explore the final recommendations and see the knowledge base that We Do Democracy has developed together with the Citizens’ Assembly’s independent expert group.