The national tegelwippen contest seeks to restore greenery and help the Netherlands meet its climate targets.
The National Championship ‘Tile-tipping’ (NK Tegelwippen) in the Netherlands is an annual competition that started in 2020, in which the whole of the country swaps grey infrastructure (tiles) for plants.
The motivation is to make Dutch gardens more climate-resistant and to promote biodiversity together with the inhabitants. Anyone can take part by replacing tiles in their garden or neighbourhood with green, natural components. The municipality that swaps the most tiles wins.
Participants can enter their swapped tiles via the website nk-tegelwippen.nl, where the statistics are added to the tile counter in their municipality. Both the municipality, but also the participants themselves have a chance to win great prizes. Every month, an expert jury chooses the 'Tile-tipper of the month', who wins a garden package.
All monthly winners have the chance to become the 'Publics tile tipper' who wins a garden voucher and award. The winning municipalities win a 'Golden Shovel' or 'Golden Tile'.
This year’s winner will be decided at the end of October. More than 11m tiles have been removed since creative agency Frank Lee fired the starting pistol on the first competition four years ago, replacing hundreds of acres of grey concrete with trees, grass, vegetable gardens and vibrant flower beds. The space is equivalent to around that of 200 football pitches.
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