Emmen

The municipality of Emmen is located in the north-eastern part of the Netherlands, in the Province of Drenthe. One of the Netherland’s greenest regions. it includes the city, thirteen smaller towns and villages, with almost 108,000 inhabitants.

Credit: Emmen Municipality

The region has a modern trimodal terminal with access by road, rail and inland waterways and is connected to the German system of freight traffic centres known as Güterverkehrszentern (GVZ). It also hosts the largest industrial cluster in the northern Netherlands.

Emmen has a longstanding commitment towards climate neutrality and sustainable mobility: within POLIS, the region is the current chair and a founder of the Small and Medium-Sized Cities Platform (SMC), which aims to elevate the role of smaller cities in the EU as living laboratories for transport innovation, calling upon them to cooperate and exchange knowledge and experiences on a wide range of governance topics. The municipality was also central in launching the SMC Ambassadors Initiative, which further champions the platform's purpose by inviting political representatives to sign up and promote the exciting innovations being undertaken within these cities.

Outside of POLIS, Emmen, along with other regions in the Netherlands, has been cooperating with the European Commission in initiatives such as the Dutch Territorial Just Transition Plan (TJTP), which aims to support the fair transition to a climate neutral economy, investing in green technologies as well as the local labour mobility to support workers in gaining new skills and jobs in carbon-neutral sectors.

Credit: Willem Ellens

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