Prime Minister Ramelow and Environment Minister Siegesmund signed the Thuringia Sustainability Agreement together with several presidents of Thuringia's business community on 30 May 2018. This guaranteed a further five years for the agreement, which has been in place since 2004. At the centre of the agreement is a network of meanwhile 600 sustainably operating companies, which is continuously growing. The office of this network is supported by the Thuringian state government. In the preparatory phase for the new agreement, the IZT submitted a short report to the Ministry of the Environment with suggestions for a successful continuation. Above all, the IZT investigated activities of other federal states for this and obtained assessments of previous experiences of participating companies and stakeholders in Thuringia.