After his election in 1997 to the post of mayor, Arno Zengerle launched a community-powered sustainability scheme called the Wildpoldsried Innovative Leadership plan. WIR-2020, as it is known, was a blueprint to reinvent the town and local area based on renewable energy, ecological construction practices and protection of water resources.
WIR-2020 spurred a green revolution that has led to the privately funded construction of a small wind farm, development of a biomass boiler system that heats 42 local buildings, and installation of PV panels on 200 private homes and municipal facilities.
