Former German Environment Minister Klaus Töpfer met with architect Jan Edler to discuss the Flussbad project in Berlin. Klaus Töpfer is also a former member of Board of the Foundation. The Flussbad project won the Global Holcim Awards Bronze in 2012 and proposes a direct and strong impact on the quality of urban life and positive ecological contribution through remediation of the Berlin’s waterways.

Klaus Töpfer has long supported water conservation and the health of waterways – famously swimming across the River Rhine in 1988 to focus attention on environmental health of river systems. 

Public support for the project was also shown by about 100 people who took the plunge in Berlin’s Spree River on July 12 as part of the European River Swimming Day. The annual event aims to raise awareness of pollution in European waterways and promote their revival and restoration.

In 2014, the German federal government and the city of Berlin approved public financing totaling four million euros through to 2018. The funding will be used to assess how the project could actually be brought to fruition, and to work to obtain the political decision to go ahead with the project.