The new Finance Minister of Lower Saxony, Gerald Heere, wants to take greater account of sustainability and climate protection criteria when making decisions about project awards. "We therefore want to include a CO2 shadow price in profitability calculations," said the Green politician to the Bremen "Weser-Kurier" (Thursday). So far, only the pure costs have been considered when awarding IT, construction or transport projects. Even if a sustainable project is more expensive in the short term, it can be significantly cheaper in relation to the life cycle. These factors were easy to calculate; other federal states had already started doing this.

Heere said the coalition had also agreed on a "gender budgeting" model project. It is about gender-equitable budget planning, which involves the question of whether women and men benefit equally from the projects. "If you only look at 'cheap, cheap, cheap', such aspects are lost," said Heere.