Grün Stadt Zürich

Grün Stadt Zürich

Type	Municipal Department
Founded	Zurich, Switzerland (1858)
Products	Planning; Construction and Maintenance of Parks, Green spaces and Open spaces; Landscape Development; Nature Preservation; Garden Allotment and Agricultural Property Leasing; Farming; Forestry; Nursery; Environmental Education
Number of employees	500
Website	www.stadt-zuerich.ch/gsz

Grün Stadt Zürich, commonly shortened to GSZ, is the Office of Parks and Open Spaces being a service of the Civil Engineering and Waste Management Department of Swiss city of Zürich. Gsz is responsible for creating, preserving and maintaining the city's park system, sports facilities, urban forests, cemeteries, public swimming pools and playgrounds. Ten farms, nine of which are leased out, several nature schools, the local plant nursery, the Succulent Plant Collection and the Chinagarten are also operated, as well as the Quaianlagen promenades at the Zürichsee lake shore.

The department includes five divisions: Operations, Services, Promotion of Nature, Planning/Construction and Maintenance.

The Operations Division includes the nine municipal farms which are leased out and the agricultural estate “Juchhof”. The “Juchhof” meets the requirements of the Swiss Ecologic Performance Record (ökologischer Leistungsnachweis ÖLN). The city forest, which covers an area of about 3,000 acres, is managed sustainably by the “Waldrevier Uetliberg” and “Waldrevier Nord”. The municipal plant nursery, which organizes various courses and events on all aspects of ‘Green Knowledge,’ belongs to this division too, as well as the lease of roughly 6,000 garden allotments. The subdivision “Workshop and Logistics”, which includes wood working, painting and mechanical workshops, is responsible for material acquisition, the vehicle fleet and repairs.

The Services Division provides commercial supporting benefits. It coordinates the economic processes, especially in Human Resources, Finances, Systems Management (Informatics and Geographic Information Systems GIS) and Legal departments. The Services Division’s activities are apparent at the job market, as the results of regular user surveys that generate an impact balance sheet, on annual and financial reports and through quality management.

The Promotion of Nature Division advocates for the preservation and conservation of valuable plant and animal habitats. Its goal is to awaken the joy of nature and to show the value of a manifold city nature to city dwellers. The four municipal gamekeepers ensure the harmonic coexistence of humans and wild animals. The nature schools provide age-appropriate experiences for the schoolchildren of Zurich. A wide range of courses and events foster the understanding of nature. Since 1931, the Succulent Plant Collection has accommodated one of the largest and most important special collections of succulent plants, including roughly 6,500 different species from more than 50 different plant families.