MUE-25 included 25 cities and regions from nine European countries. Among the participants were both cities and regions that only started to implement environmental management systems as well as cities/regions that are very experienced in working with environmental management systems and were looking for new areas of using them, for instance by widening the scope of their system to economic and social aspects.
The city partners played an extremely important role in the project, as they implemented the framework model and provided information about their experiences.
The test implementation took place during 2006-2007. By utilizing this practical test and by further developing the methods based on it, the MUE-25 project proposed, at the beginning of 2008, an improved system and implementation methodology to be used potentially in all cities of Europe. This system addresses the whole urban area (including parts of the urbanized area outside the administrative borders) of the city and includes besides environment the two other dimensions ov sustainable development: social affairs and economy.
The participating cities and regions were:
Parallel to this project ICLEI and Bodensee-Stiftung were coordinating a German module “Kommunales Nachhaltigkeitsmanagement” (Sustainable Urban Management), which had the same objectives as MUE-25. It was financed by the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt and the Environmental Department of the Bundesland Baden-Württemberg. Ten cities agreed on going through the whole management cycle. Four cities joined with the status of observer and advisor to the cities involved.