Mini International : Green Cities - Copenhagen, Kyoto, San Francisco, Essen

This year, MINIInternational, MINI's lifestyle magazine focuses on four “Sustainable Cities”. The cities Kyoto, Copenhagen, San Francisco and Essen were chosen by the editors at MINIInternational due to their dedication to sustainability and are hence entitled “green cities”.

The masterminds behind the concept and editorial design are journalist Anne Urbauer (“Wallpaper, “NZZ am Sonntag”) and Mike Meiré, AD of BRANDEINS and CD of science magazine “McKinsey”. The team tailored the magazine to suit MINI, both in regards to the visuals and the content which reflects the world of this premium compact car.  

Kyoto, the ancient emperor's city of Japan is first in line. Amongst the projects, which are introduced in MINIInternational are the Miyaki Ecology Centre, designed by Ken Kodomo in 2002. The environmental information hub uses solar energy, geothermic power and rainwater in a manner so innovative, it reduces emission of CO2 by 30 percent when compared to similar buildings, which do not utilize recyclable energy. The city's busses and collection bodies are fuelled by biological diesel, which is extracted from recycled oil residues.

The most recent issue of MINIInternational deals with Copenhagen, which is devoted to becoming the “World's Leading Environmental Capital” and the “World's Leading Bicycle City” by 2015. Here are some further examples which make Copenhagen one of the world's most prominent “Sustainable City”: Nearly 12 percent of privately used consumer goods are organic, 97 percent of all households are connected to community heating, a number that is unmatched. Copenhagen's pupils learn to eat on a healthy basis in the “Organic Food Programme”.  The MINIInternational Copenhagen issue was released in June.

San Francisco, coined by many experts as the ”capital of sustainable cities” in the USA. Whatever takes a good deal of pushing in other places around the world, has already been established in San Francisco. Thus, plastic bags are generally banned. More than 200 electric vehicles are in the city's service, the public busses offer innovative possibilities to transport bicycles, to promote their usage. In San Francisco, suction mats made from human hair were invented, which are capable of absorbing oil in case of tanker accidents in the most efficient way. This MINIInternational will be released in September.

The sustainability issues by MINIInternational 2008 are being published with a print run of 200,000 in seven languages (German, English, French, Japanese, Arabic, Spanish and two issues in Italian)

MINIInternational is available worldwide at MINI retailers, at www.MINI.com/MINIInternational, as a subscription, at conventions, in design hotels, at corner shops, exclusive book shops and via cooperations. MINIInternational is published by Hoffman und Campe Verlag GmbH.