In 1985 he left Stuttgart to work in Hessen at the ministry of environment, then run by party colleague Joschka Fischer for two years.

[10] He ran on a platform that called for shutting down nuclear power plants, overhauling a public school system the Greens see as elitist, and imposing speed limits on Autobahns.

[11] Also, Kretschmann is widely regarded as having benefited from his party's opposition to Stuttgart 21, a massive development project in Baden-Württemberg's capital.

[13] In the 2016 state elections, Kretschmann led the Green Party to a historic 30%, thus coming three points ahead of the Christian Democrats.

[17][18] Following the ongoing success of the Greens in the 2021 state elections, Kretschmann was subsequently re-elected for serving a third term as minister president on May 12, 2021.

[19] Kretschmann belongs to the more Realpolitik-oriented, centrist wing of the Green Party, and has been characterised as holding economically liberal, pro-business views.

[9] He objected to the Greens’ election platform of tax increases, warning the leadership in a public letter to avoid any move that would be detrimental to business.

At the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, Kretschmann and Brown convened in Paris during the talks to attract more supporters among governors, mayors and other leaders of “subnational” governments for stronger commitments to reducing emissions.

[24] During the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany, Kretschmann clashed with environmentalists, as he supported stimulus subsidies for the purchase of cars with relatively efficient combustion engines.

[25] Kretschmann stated that he wants to keep refugees who commit crimes in groups away from major cities and distribute them in the country, saying that the idea of sending some of them "into the pampas" was "not wrong", and adding, "To put it bluntly, the most dangerous thing that human evolution has produced is hordes of young men."