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Lack of a common overview of land conversion and progress on the political goals of the Danish Green Tripartite Agreement that everyone could follow.
The Danish Agency for Green Land Use and Aquatic Environment developed MARS. The MARS system is a GIS-based platform that makes it possible to map green projects, calculate effects, submit applications and track status across stakeholders.
Today, all parties have an authoritative data basis that helps structure the work and implement the goals of the Danish Green Tripartite Agreement, and which in practice functions as a decision support system. The solution has been well received across the stakeholder landscape and was delivered on time.
When the Danish Green Tripartite Agreement was adopted, there was a sudden rush to develop an IT solution that could support the work. That solution was the brand-new MARS platform, which not only brings all stakeholders together on a common data basis, but also helps to structure and follow up on future green initiatives.
Denmark put itself on the world map when the Danish Green Tripartite Agreement was signed in the summer of 2024. This historic agreement, between the government, a number of parties and other organisations, aims to ensure more nature, cleaner water and a sustainable transition of agriculture. More specifically: 250,000 hectares of forest are to be established by 2045; 140,000 hectares of lowland soil, including marginal areas, are to be taken out of production; and 13,800 tonnes of nitrogen are to be reduced. This is a massive task involving many stakeholders, a great deal of attention and constant political pressure.
The Ministry of Green Transition and the newly established Danish Agency for Green Land Use and Aquatic Environment [SGAV by its Danish initials] were put in charge of the task. It quickly became clear that a single authoritative data source was needed to form a basis for decisions, as well as planning. The solution was the IT platform MARS – Multifunctional Area Registration – which went into production in January 2025, just a few months after the political decision-making process came to an end. Today, MARS functions as the digital lens of the Green Tripartite, through which everyone views the work and plans initiatives.
Isabella Theodorsen works at SGAV as a special consultant and project manager on MARS. She describes the IT platform as a bit of a Swiss Army knife that performs many different tasks.
“So far, looking at the projects that have been applied for, we have only come a short way. Therefore, one of the requirements for MARS was that it should function as a planning tool that can show us how to achieve the Tripartite’s objectives. It was important to us that MARS is a Geographic Information System or GIS tool, making it possible to draw, analyse and visualise geographical areas and combine data from different sources. In this way, municipalities and other players can draw in what they want to achieve – such as, this is where we want lowlands, this should be forest, here we want nature – and they can work together on that,” says Isabella Theodorsen.
She explains that MARS is not only about planning, but also about getting the projects up and running. That is why the solution also includes an application module where a draft project can be prepared for submission, while the actual case processing still takes place in the agency’s specialist systems. In addition, MARS has a status function that provides an overview of progress. In this way, municipalities can follow developments in their area, and citizens can see how far land conversion has progressed at both a national and a local level.
“The latter is an important point. MARS increases transparency. Previously, you had to contact several different specialist offices to obtain the necessary information, but now the data is all in one place. That makes it clear what we are using the funds for and gives everyone – politicians, municipalities and citizens alike – access to the same information and results.”
The project has been a success and was delivered on time. We received praise from stakeholders and users. Even the minister had words of praise for the project. It is really positive and motivating, and at the same time, internally in the agency we have found it to be a great benefit to have a single, unified data basis."
MARS was developed in collaboration between SGAV, the Danish Environmental Portal, Globeteam and Septima as IT suppliers. This has been a successful collaboration in several ways.
“The project has been a success and was delivered on time. We received praise from stakeholders and users. Even the minister had words of praise for the project. It is really positive and motivating, and at the same time, internally in the agency we have found it to be a great benefit to have a single, unified data basis,” says Isabella Theodorsen. She points to the way of collaborating as an important reason for the success.
“Instead of a classic requirements specification, we have worked closely together in short iterations. We could never have done this as a waterfall project because the requirements have changed continuously in line with political decisions and user experiences. Working in an agile and dialogue-based way has made it possible to make adjustments along the way. The key has been that we dared to go live with a first version and build on that. We accepted that the solution did not have to be perfect from day one, as long as we created value quickly. Of course, this required management support, but we got that too.”
There is also praise for both Globeteam and Septima, who have acted as a single team on the project.
“It has been crucial that we have had partners who both understand the technical components and have experience with environmental data. For example, we have been able to utilise the layer selector, which collects a lot of map data that we would otherwise have had to collect ourselves. That would have been a huge task. At the same time, they have been good at translating our technical needs into something that users can actually understand. Whereas we professionals often want all the details, they have helped us take a broader view and create visualisations that are simple and user-friendly. We can always put any particularly nerdy details in a technical guide for people to access if needed,” says Isabella Theodorsen, concluding:
“Our experience is that we have had suppliers who don’t just do what we ask them to do. They challenge us. For me, this is proof of a real collaboration, where a supplier is not just an external party to the project, but is inside the engine room.”
Globeteam and Septima have reused existing data, methods and framework tools from other development projects in the environmental field, which meant that they could quickly be converted into usable solutions in the MARS project.
The MARS system – Multifunctional Area Registration – is a digital platform that supports the Danish Green Tripartite Agreement by bringing together data, planning, applications and status overviews in one place. The solution was developed in collaboration with the Danish Agency for Green Land Use and Aquatic Environment [SGAV], the Danish Environmental Portal, Globeteam and Septima.
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