About ZfK Zeitung für kommunale Wirtschaft

ZfK Zeitung für kommunale Wirtschaft

The ZfK – Zeitung für kommunale Wirtschaft is the leading medium of Germany's municipal utilities and public-service companies. Founded in June 1954 and published by the VKU Verlag — the publishing house of the Verband kommunaler Unternehmen (Association of Municipal Enterprises) — it appears monthly in print and daily online, serving the decision-makers of the municipal energy and supply industry: Stadtwerke executives, mayors, department heads and the policymakers who shape their framework. With more than 45,000 print readers, a morning briefing reaching some 30,000 subscribers, the 2022 "Best Trade Medium of the Year" award from the Deutsche Fachpresse and European Newspaper Awards in 2022 through 2025, the ZfK has been the independent voice of the kommunale Wirtschaft for more than 70 years.

Overview

Municipal enterprises — Stadtwerke, water utilities, waste-management companies, public transport and broadband providers — form one of the pillars of the German economy: more than 1,570 companies with around 194 billion euros in revenue and over 309,000 employees are organised in the VKU, holding dominant market shares in electricity, gas, drinking water, heating and wastewater, and serving more than six million customers with broadband. The ZfK is their newspaper.

Published monthly in print and daily online, the ZfK reports on energy and environmental policy, flagship projects and innovative companies, and the leading figures of the industry — with background and high practical value on everything that moves the energy and Stadtwerke world: heat, natural gas, hydrogen, renewable energies and digitalisation. Its readers are the industry's leadership: supervisory and management boards, managing directors — 59 per cent of its readers are managing directors, and 45 per cent command budgetary discretion over more than 100,000 euros — division and department heads, HR managers, and politicians, consultants and officials in public organisations, associations and authorities.

The VKU Verlag describes the ZfK as its flagship: reaching more than 45,000 readers in print and supplying around 30,000 subscribers every morning with the "ZfK Morning Briefing" of independent industry news. Media data put the sold circulation at 15,365 copies and the distributed circulation at 17,906 — the highest IVW-audited sold circulation in the sector.

That reach reflects the title's unique position. The municipal economy is fragmented into hundreds of Stadtwerke and utilities, each with its own management, each facing the same regulatory and technological upheavals — the energy transition, digitalisation, the heat transition. The ZfK is the medium where this dispersed industry reads about itself: where a managing director in Bavaria learns how a utility in the north solved the same problem, where policymakers' plans are translated into operational consequences, and where the sector's collective voice takes shape.

History

The ZfK was founded in June 1954, then still under the name "Zeitung für Kommunalwirtschaft"; following a naming dispute it was renamed "Zeitung für kommunale Wirtschaft" in 1956. Its first editor-in-chief was Georg Berkenhoff (born Hansgeorg Trurnit), previously the responsible editor for municipal politics and municipal economy at the Neue Zeitung. He was followed by Wolf Dieter Mandel, Jürgen Pott and Michael Nallinger; since June 2018 Klaus Hinkel has been editor-in-chief.

From twelve pages at the start, the paper grew to an average of 26 pages per issue by 1961/62, with an IVW-audited circulation of 23,000 copies at the time; in the 1980s and 1990s the average volume lay between 36 and 40 pages. The ZfK went online in 1998 and started its first daily newsletter, the "ZfK Tagesticker", in 2002 — early digital steps for a trade medium.

The publisher is the VKU Verlag, the publishing house of the Verband kommunaler Unternehmen, which moved its seat from Cologne to Berlin in 2007 and maintains a Brussels office and twelve regional groups. The publishing house supplies the municipal economy with journalistic products on energy, water/wastewater, waste management, broadband and mobility — pairing journalistic skill with direct access to 1,500 municipal companies. Recent honours mark the title's standing: the Deutsche Fachpresse named it the best trade medium of 2022 in the category for journals with over 2.5 million euros in annual revenue, and it received the European Newspaper Award in 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025.

The VKU itself gives the publishing house its foundation: a political and professional association that represents municipal enterprises in legislation and regulation, formulates their common positions and explains them to policymakers and the public. The publishing house extends this representation into journalism — with the ZfK as its reach-strongest medium, in the association's own description.

Content and Sections

The ZfK's coverage follows the municipal value chain. Energy reporting — the core — examines the heat transition, natural gas, hydrogen, renewable energies and the digitalisation of utilities, with data-based articles that make complex information comprehensible. Water/wastewater, waste management and urban cleanliness, broadband and mobility complete the sectoral coverage. Policy reporting tracks energy and environmental legislation from Berlin and Brussels; company reporting presents flagship projects and innovative municipal enterprises; portraits introduce the industry's leading figures.

The daily online edition and the "ZfK Morning Briefing" deliver the news flow; the monthly print issue provides background, analysis and the magazine reading experience. The publisher increasingly complements journalism with digital tools and ready-to-use working aids for municipal companies: videos and explanatory films, PR and marketing communication materials, a white-label donation platform for local charitable projects, and the "Live Monitor kommunale Energie", the publisher's own municipal market-research tool for Stadtwerke.

The ZfK describes itself as the independent lead medium of the municipal economy — independent in the sense of journalistic distance from the association that owns its publisher, a positioning the title's awards have repeatedly confirmed. Its recruitment pages seek editors who want to accompany the energy and heat transition journalistically — leading teams that produce high-quality online and print content on heat, natural gas, hydrogen, renewable energies and digitalisation — a sign of a newsroom that sees itself as shaping the energy world of tomorrow rather than merely reporting it.

Publisher and Organization

The ZfK – Zeitung für kommunale Wirtschaft is published by the VKU Verlag GmbH, the publishing house of the Verband kommunaler Unternehmen e.V. (association seat Berlin; publishing address Grillparzer Straße 12, 81675 München). It appears monthly in print and daily online, in German; the editor-in-chief is Klaus Hinkel. Its print ISSN is 0946-2740. The publisher's media data report a sold circulation of 15,365 copies and a distributed circulation of 17,906, with more than 45,000 print readers and around 30,000 Morning Briefing subscribers. The VKU association organises more than 1,570 municipal companies with some 194 billion euros in revenue and over 309,000 employees (2023 figures).

Digital Presence

The brand's digital home is zfk.de, with daily reporting and the "ZfK Morning Briefing" newsletter reaching some 30,000 subscribers every morning. The publisher has built a digital toolkit around the title: videos and explanatory films, communication materials for municipal PR and marketing, the white-label donation platform and the "Live Monitor kommunale Energie" market-research tool. The ZfK counts among Germany's top 80 trade media — the only energy title among them. Through its combination of a 70-year-old monthly newspaper, daily online news and the morning briefing, the ZfK remains what its anniversary communications claim: the lead medium of the Stadtwerke and supply companies, the newspaper of Germany's municipal economy — read, in the publisher's audience data, by 82 per cent of the managing directors of the municipal energy and supply industry.