Today I wanna talk about a topic that is dear to my heart, cause I did a volentary ecological year and studied two semesters renewable energies at the University of Applied Forest Sciences Rottenburg, but then switch cities and majors. If you wanna know more about my professional life, feel free to ask or look me up at LinkedIn.
So what does someone with a B.Eng. in electrical engineering and management who works at a software company has to say about Sustainbility. Firstly I’m no expert, but like to hear some of them talk. Thats why I was privatly at the Impact Day from the HHL and the city of Leipzig last Friday.
Sustainability Talk; Friday, 13th October 2023 with delicious vegan food (rice and curry with snow pea and zucchini and mango sauce for dessert)
What I learned at the conference
At first a professor and his research associates of the HHL Leipzig explained what sustainability and the impeding elements for change are. I learned about the planentary boundaries and carbon tunnel vision.
The UN has defined sustainbility 1987 as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
But the problem is the intention-action gap which explains that the intention to live in balance with the enviroment isn’t met by the behaviour. They have data for that from an experiment with a climate score (like the Nutri-Score) for groceries. The obstacles are summerarized with the acronym SHIFT:
- Social influence
- Habit formations
- Individual self
- Feelings and cognition
- Tangibility
My questions and comments
About marketing for the enviroment: I know for a fact that there is a prototype for a way more efficient magentic induction stove, but the company decided to not go to market with it.
About electrifiying everything: The most important questions is, what happens at the end of the battery lifecycle with the battery and rare earth elements in the product (buzzword waste management).
More of the topics and people at the conference
A practical example gave someone from a start-up about biomass, but unfortunately I didn’t catch the name. Then there were two people from the NGO EIT-climate-KIC and one of them talked about enviromental friendly project, like net zero cities and how they can get funded by this NGO which is funded by the EU.
The next speaker was from WEDG (Waterfront Alliance) New York and gave us insights into actions against flooding as well as blue and green investing, e.g. solactive ETFs.
The event was in cooperation with the city of Leipzig and the head of the energy and sustainability department, Maria Nieswand talked about sustainable development goals (e.g. net zero city) and even made us laugh despite of the dooming topic of ecological crisis.
From cities to law led a speaker from Reed Smith, she explained some things about Environmental, Social und Governance (ESG). Next in line was someone from Airbus who talked a lot about next generation mobility with aviation.
My questions and comments
The topic aviation with taxi drones instantly let me think about one of my favorite books of all time “Brave new world” from Huxley first published in the year 1932. And the thought of lesser walks and more (electronic) waste material escalated into thinking of the film “Wall:E“. Highly recommend both and if you want to know more or have someone to chat about that, feel free to connect.
At the end there was a great panel discussion where I asked the last question: “What is the position of the EU about fracking?“, because one of the speakers from America said that it helped them become more self-sufficient. No one at the conference could answer me that, maybe you can?
What I do personally and maybe you can adopt
Because of business and pleasure appointments this week I had to come with the car from the north of the black forest (where I live) to Leipzig for the conference (and to celebrate the suceeded colloquium of my boyfriends masterthesis). But I don’t have a car, so I borrowed one of my neighbours (two retirees with two cars, but mostly only need one). And additionally I used blablacar to not ride alone with an empty car.
Another easy thing to do, is to look for alternatives for your electronics and fashion. For example I had a fairphone for a year and only switch to an outdoor phone cause my phone constantly kept falling to the ground or into water. They now also have headphones and you can sent them your old phones to get a voucher. I don’t know anything about the fashion world, cause I always get clothes second hand. But in the past I shopped by ArmedAngels and Vaude.
- What do you know about fracking?
- What are things you implemented in your daily life to do your bit for the climate?
Feel free to leave some feedback in German or English 🙂
Stay tuned, Stay curious, Stay healthy.
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