Therefore since 2012, the NRW state government has been hosting annual sustainability conferences. These were central places of participation, both for the formulation of the first NRW sustainability strategy and for its implementation and further development since 2016. Each of the conferences brought together around 400 participants from civil society, municipalities, business, and science from all over the federal state. The conferences were also forums for exchange with the federal level, with the European level, and with the NRW municipalities, and thus an important tool for a good coordination of sustainability concepts at the various levels. The NRW sustainability conferences are to continue to play a key role as an exchange and communication platform in the future. Interactive formats and the involvement of young people are to be further strengthened to highlight the intergenerational dimension.

The "Municipal Sustainability Conferences NRW", which have been held since 2014 and are organized by LAG 21 with the support of municipal umbrella organizations and funding from the state government, have proven to be an additional valuable exchange format for municipal actors from administration, local politics, and civil society. They are therefore to be continued in order to provide important impulses for sustainable development at the municipal level through the exchange of good practices from NRW’s municipalities.

In another municipal dialogue format, the "Dialogue Sustainable Communities NRW", lord mayors, mayors, district administrators and councillors as well as representatives of the municipal umbrella organisations and the state government exchange views on the implementation of sustainable development in North Rhine-Westphalia.