German town prints its own cash to cut CO2 emissions
It started as a school project to promote local businesses in a remote Bavarian region. Now, the "Chiemgauer" currency helps to cut emissions. Walk into
It started as a school project to promote local businesses in a remote Bavarian region. Now, the "Chiemgauer" currency helps to cut emissions. Walk into a bakery or a bookshop in Bavaria's Chiemgau region, and you might spot a customer paying with what looks like play money — colorful banknotes printed with grasshoppers, ladybugs and other insects. "An estimated 10 to 15% of customers pay this way," one bookseller told DW. The locals call it the "Chiemgauer" — and it's a currency they invented themselves. Quirky as it sounds, it underpins a micro financial system that has been running for more than two decades — and has recently evolved into a tool for cutting carbon emissions in this picturesque corner of southeastern Germany. A classroom experiment that got out of hand The Chiemgauer was born in 2003 at a local high school, where economics teacher Christian Gelleri and a group of students were looking for a way to support local businesses losing customers to shopping malls and big chains. Their solution was a new currency, designed to keep money circulating within the region. They printed it, handed it out and one by one locals began using the Chiemgauer and stores began accepting it. Local high school students, developed the currency which went into circulation in January 2003 [File photo: 2002] Image: Chiemgauer e.V. Slowly, a classroom idea turned into a financial system. "Five million Chiemgauers are being spent annually now," said Gelleri, who still heads the association managing the currency, Chiemgauer e.V. Today, €1 equals one Chiemgauer. In its office in the town of Traunstein in the Alpine foothills, Gelleri opens the group's vault to reveal thick stacks of banknotes.
"These are more than 200,000 Chiemgauers, worth the same amount in euros," Gelleri said proudly. These notes are now created by a professional company and carry watermarks and anti-counterfeiting features. Under German law, printing and using money other than euros can be a criminal offense. But because the Chiemgauer is confined to the region and used by only around 4,200 people and 300 businesses, Germany's central bank, the Deutsche Bundesbank, tolerates it. Those who want to use the money must sign up to the Chiemgauer association. How a little trick keeps this money moving A walk through the shops of Traunstein with their colorful facades illustrates how the system works. In an organic food store, a customer pays for cheese and sausages with a 50-Chiemgauer banknote. "I run an organic food store myself and partly use the Chiemgauer earnings for my own purchases," he told DW. It's the same for a vendor selling Mediterranean delicacies from a marketplace stall. "We use our Chiemgauer earnings to pay the supplier we buy our fresh ingredients from," she explained. This way, the money goes around, either in cash or electronically with a special card that works with regular bank accounts. The local currency can be used at around 300 businesses in the region, even at pubs Image: Florian Kroker/DW To keep a note valid and the Chiemgauer moving, holders must buy a small stamp every six months. The stamp for a 10-Chiemgauer note costs about €0.30 ($0.35), for example. After three years, bills expire entirely. Private users cannot convert Chiemgauers to euros. Businesses can convert the funds, but pay a 5% fee to do so.
The BriefWire