MVRDV is among the four teams that presented their final reports at the end of January 2022, outlining a detailed strategy for Luxembourg to become carbon neutral by 2050. Creating a strategic plan for the entire functional region, the proposal takes into account factors including governance, land use, infrastructure, urban design, and societal changes such as diet and travel habits. It presents the groundwork necessary to facilitate Luxembourg’s transition toward a zero-carbon society by 2050 and beyond, enabling wide-scale and inspiring societal and ecological resilience.

Spanning not only Luxembourg itself but also parts of Belgium, Germany, and France, the Greater Region of Luxembourg is resource-rich and highly productive. The region faces clear challenges including reliance on imports of food and workers, a growing population, heavy commuting by car, a sub-optimal public mobility network, and an unsustainable agricultural industry that is required to support a lifestyle dependent on animal-based food products. The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted the problems inherent in some of these issues; in others, the sudden change in lifestyle proved that sustainable changes are not only possible, but in many cases desirable. The Luxembourg in Transition competition sought to address these and other issues with a comprehensive and holistic sustainability and resilience strategy for the whole region.

Because such society-wide challenges are highly interconnected, the proposal addresses six key themes and, just as importantly, the links between them: food, energy, water, mobility, urban spaces, and forests. These were assessed using the Ecotopia Monitor, a tool that converts carbon footprints and a variety of other inputs such as food production and urban density to output a single number in the form of a land area metric. For example, the analysis of Luxembourg’s current situation found that under a “business as usual” approach, Luxembourg would need a land area 13.8 times its current size to be carbon-neutral by 2050. Used long-term, the Ecotopia Monitor would allow its users to collaborate across different scales, themes, institutions, political parties, and regions.