Young Climate Action in Vejle Municipality

Climate and biodiversity crises create the need for major societal changes and call for new forms of action. It is especially important that we include young people when making decisions for the future. Yet it can be difficult to establish and maintain green youth communities, especially in medium-sized cities without large student communities. Many initiatives struggle with low awareness, competition from other communities and high barriers to getting started.

Vejle Municipality and the Green Forum want to address this. Grønt Forum – Vejle’s Green Network – brings together a number of local actors around the green transition, but has struggled to anchor a long-term youth track in its work.

With the development project ‘Young Climate Action in Vejle Municipality’, Grønt Forum and We Do Democracy have put young people in the driver’s seat for the development of new green initiatives that release young people’s commitment and ideas. The project is a co-creation process where young people, local green actors and Grønt Forum developed a new vision for future green youth engagement in Vejle and three concrete pilot projects that can pave the way.

The aim of the project was to explore what it takes to create viable green youth communities in Vejle and translate this knowledge into concrete initiatives.

Together with the circle of partners, the project should:

• Produce an investigative background paper that identifies what it takes for green youth communities to succeed.

• Identify barriers and opportunities for youth green engagement in Vejle.

• Develop a shared vision for the future of youth involvement in the city’s green transition.

• Design three concrete pilot projects, each paving the way for strong green youth communities that can strengthen youth engagement and empowerment.

The project approach was that the users of the future should also be the developers of today. Therefore, the pilot projects were developed in collaboration with young people from Vejle to ensure that they reflect the needs, motivation and ideas of young people.

What the pilot projects have in common is that they explore how the municipality can help ensure a framework where young people can succeed on their own terms without peripheral or symbolic involvement.

The development project combined analysis and co-creation to develop the concept catalog.

First, we conducted in-depth interviews with young people from successful green youth communities in other medium-sized cities. The interviews provided insights into the key ingredients for green youth communities to succeed, how a municipality or partner can help them on their way, and what challenges they face in particular.

These experiences were brought into a local co-creation process in Vejle. Here, We Do Democracy facilitated:

• A kick-off workshop with local green actors to uncover experiences, needs and dreams for green youth engagement in Vejle.

• Four development meetings with a youth working group where we designed the three pilot projects that reflect the diversity of Vejle’s green youth.

• A final kickoff workshop with young people, the Green Forum, local politicians and local green actors, where the youth working group presented the pilot projects and the participants jointly qualified them and set the direction for the next phase of the project.

The kickoff workshop also served as the starting point for closer collaboration between the city’s youth, the Green Forum and local green actors.

The project resulted in a concept catalog that brings together a shared vision for future green youth engagement in Vejle Municipality, three pilot projects that can pave the way, and a background note based on interviews with young people from successful green youth communities in Hillerød and Esbjerg.

The three pilot projects are:

• Green Project Spires – a green project maker program that gives young people the skills to turn ideas into concrete green action.

• The Green Workshop – a physical and hands-on meeting place for young people with a green creative spirit who want to experiment, develop and learn.

• Green Agenda – a youth-driven network where young people can explore agendas and become a strong voice in the local climate debate.

The project has laid the foundation for young people’s concrete influence on Vejle Municipality’s green agenda and created new connections between the city’s youth, politicians and green actors. This work with youth influence and joint action has potential and relevance for the wider Danish context.

The Green Forum has committed to presenting the results of the projects to the Local Communities and Local Democracy Committee to seek support for 2026 efforts. In addition, the Green Forum will continue to work on the pilot projects in collaboration with their local green networks and pave the way for further collaboration.