Imagining What’s Next in Munich

Every climate story needs a next chapter, and this is the cluster where Munich starts writing it. In the final thematic cluster of our blog series, we’re asking the question: what could a climate-friendly city actually taste like, feel like, and look like? The answers come from three places that rarely share a stage: the kitchen table, the lab bench, and the cultural scene.

Food & Agriculture, Innovation & Technology, and Arts & Community Engagement make up this cluster, and each one fills in what the others leave open. New food systems need technology to scale, technology needs communities to trust it, and communities need something real to rally around. Together, the three turn climate action from a to-do list into an invitation.

Why this cluster matters—especially in Munich

Munich aims to be climate-neutral by 2035, ten years ahead of the federal target of 2045. Getting there takes more than cutting emissions; it takes new ideas, new habits, and people who want to be part of them. That is what this cluster is about:

Food & Agriculture puts the plate at the centre of climate action. What we grow, how we grow it, and what ends up in the bin all shape emissions and biodiversity, and this theme covers everything from farming that works with nature to vertical farms, food waste, and the diets of the future.

Innovation & Technology is where ideas make the leap to prototypes and products. With its universities, investors, and startup scene, Munich is a natural home for climate tech, from AI-supported sustainability tools to fusion energy for the longer term.

Arts & Community Engagement makes climate topics something people can feel and take part in. Films, readings, workshops, and neighbourhood projects reach people a panel discussion never will, and they turn awareness into a first small step.

The three work best as a team. A vertical farm only changes habits if people want to eat what it grows, a clever technology only spreads if the community around it trusts it, and a good story only lasts if there is something real to point to.

Munich’s own ecosystem is already imagining it

A look through Munich Climate Week’s partners and hosts shows that this cluster isn’t just a talking point; organisations across the city are already working on what comes next.

On food & agriculture: The family-owned organic food company HiPP runs a model farm dedicated to biodiversity, showing how climate-friendly farming can work in everyday practice, while Too Good To Go connects people with surplus food to keep it out of the bin.

On innovation & technology: Proxima Fusion, a fusion energy company based in Munich, is working on fusion power plants for a long-term energy supply, an example of how the city’s research and engineering strengths can feed into climate tech. Tanso, a sustainability software company, helps businesses measure and manage their carbon emissions, showing how digital tools can turn climate data into action.

On arts & community engagement: ClimateFresk explains climate science through collaborative workshops, the Munich group of Omas for Future brings climate action into the neighbourhood, and Urbaner Waldgarten München e.V. is building a shared food forest garden in the city.

What to look for in the programme

The Munich Climate Week programme is now live, and this cluster is packed with sessions that make the future tangible. Under Food & Agriculture, look out for “Shaping Tomorrow: Climate Innovation and the Future of Food Security” (19 October), “Homegrown: How Vertical Farming Could Change the Way We Eat” (20 October), and the “Too Good To Go Potluck-Picknick” in the English Garden (19 October), as well as a visit to the HiPP model farm near Pfaffenhofen: “Biodiversität und Klimaresilienz in der landwirtschaftlichen Praxis: Besuch auf dem HiPP Musterhof” (22 October).

Under Innovation & Technology, “Building the Baseload: an engineering evening at Proxima Fusion” (22 October) invites you to see how fusion engineering takes shape, and “Next Level of Climate Tech Vol. IV – Munich Climate Week Edition” (23 October) shows where climate tech in Munich is heading.

For Arts & Community Engagement, look out for the multilingual “Climate Fresk of Nations” (24 October, Altes Rathaus) and a reading by Luisa Neubauer, “Lesung von Luisa Neubauer: Was wäre, wenn wir mutig sind?” (21 October), while “Crocheting for Biodiversity” (21 October) proves that climate action can be hands-on and fun. The full programme, with all dates, venues, and registration details, is available on the official programme page.

For the current list of partners, visit the Munich Climate Week partners page and the official website.

The bigger picture

What makes this cluster compelling is that it treats the future as something to build together rather than something to forecast. Food, technology, and culture are usually discussed in separate rooms, yet this is where they meet: the farm and the founder, the lab and the neighbourhood, the film screening and the engineer. When they share one cluster, the question changes from “what will happen to us?” to “what would we like to happen?”

The mix of hosts, from a family-owned food company to investors, startups, and volunteer groups, is itself a good sign. It suggests that imagination is no longer left to a few specialists, and that Munich has the universities, companies, and community energy to turn ideas into things people can taste, test, and take part in. Taken together, it reads like the first sketch of a city that is not just reacting to climate change but designing what comes next.