Within the area of environmental communication the DBU activities are aimed to make environmental connections understandable and point them out in particular courses. Concepts for a knowledge transfer by inclusion of scientific and didactical methods as well as the application of the media and means of communication to reduce the gap between environmental knowledge and the conversion into practice are in demand.

Under the headline "Solar - na klar!" the DBU promoted between 1998 - 2001 the first sales-orientated marketing campaign for solarthermal appliances. Despite missing sponsor means for broad-effective publicity campaigns like advertisement campaigns and commercial television the broad public was successful sensitised and the communication strategy clearly effective. Medium work with political and social VIPs (Federal Chancellor, ministers, actors, sportsmen) led to a broad response, over 430 million reader contacts among other things led to a high admittance of solar-interested house owners. The press response is reflected in a great number of website visitors of www.solar-na-klar.de - on the average 15,000 per month in 2001. A series of classified advertisements in technical literature addressed the private house owners directly. The handicraft, as a third primary target group beside the public and the private house owners, was responded by sending an advertising brochure to crafts enterprises, sequential intensive technical literature work, a regular fax mailing to the registered crafts enterprises. Thereby "Solar - na klar!" is a successful model for a co-operative, industry-spreading form of environmental communication, involving supply and demand of a new market were well informed and motivated to contribute effectively to climatic and environmental protection.

Together with the Hamburg environmental foundation "Save Our Future SOF" the Deutscher Turnerbund has established the initiative "Sport and Environment". The world's oldest sports club, the Hamburger Turnerschaft of 1816 (HT16) initiated together with the DBU a model project which has been so far unique in the sports scene. The EEC environmental audit regulation standard was applied for the first time to a sports club. During one and a half year the possibilities for the improvement of environmental protection around sport activities were examined and exemplary measures transferred. Environmental management was implemented, dedicated to the decrease of the water and energy consumption as well as to waste avoidance in the operation procedures. Further substantial emphasis was given to quality improvement of the environment targets and the broad integration of the club members into the improvement process. With the supply of a multiplicity of environmental educational measures the sports club became an ecological learning place. The results and experiences offer interesting insights for many clubs and sports facility operators in improvement of environmental protection, for the saving of costs as well as for knowledge transfer.

Finally the DBU concentrates on the topic sustainability and local agenda 21 for years with a certain emphasis. In the past years a number of projects received financial backing with the target to improve the consciousness for this important topic and make it more popular, with priority going to an active participation of the population, in particular from groups, which do not rank usually among the main public of environmental meetings. In order to improve a co-operation between universities and municipalities the project "model of a universitary-municipal partnership on implementing local agenda 21" with the Technical University of Darmstadt was supported. Thus not only cities were included into the local agenda process, another concept was particularly promoted: "The agenda 21 in rural areas at the example of the municipality Doerverden in Lower Saxony". The project "Qualification of agenda moderators (in co-operation with the Deutscher Volkschochschulverband) met this objective. The regional co-operation of municipalities was subject of the project "Communication for a local sustainable development" with the Institute for Ecological Economic Research (IÖW) in North Rhine-Westphalia. Repeatedly cross-bordering communication projects were implemented to use concepts and conversions for the local agenda 21 outside of Germany, among others with projects in the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Austria and also Italy.