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SUSTAINABILITY

Logo https://story.bosch-stiftung.de/sustainability?page=102304

Magazine SUSTAINABILITY

Many people want to lead a more sustainable way of life but what can a single person do to contribute to ecological, social and economic sustainability?

We introduce you to creative and committed people who make our world a more sustainable place - be it at a farm, in the lab, in the supermarket or at an old train station.

Get to know the stories!
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The Stories

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Magazine as PDF

SUSTAINABILE USE OF OUR RESOURCES IS OF EXISTENTIAL IMPORTANCE
Interview with Christof Bosch

PLANNING FOR AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE
A discussion on the sustainable city of tomorrow

A REMEDY FOR POPULISM
Essay by Ottmar Edenhofer

EDUCATION FOR TOMORROW
Initiative helps schools and teachers in Sub-Saharan countries


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FROM ONE SOURCE

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The number of chronically ill people is rising. They require healthcare services. But doctors are in especially short supply in the countryside. The Robert Bosch Stiftung supports model health centers designed to guarantee sustainable primary and long-term care.

More about the project at www.bosch-stiftung.de/port
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The students here are not merely gifted, but have made an impression through their dedication and intelligent questioning of the world. Another focus in Freiburg: Sustainability...
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ESS, short for "Environmental Systems and Societies", is a class where students study a combination of natural and social sciences and grapple with technological and societal questions related to environmental protection. They are tasked with developing scenarios for dealing with climate change.

Imelda from Benin shows a film: her home city of Cotonou under water; she herself waded through the morass and later spent three weeks in the hospital.
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Tobias Kellner is the UWC's sustainability coordinator.

"Sustainability is an abstract concept," he says "we will never be a sustainable society if people alienate themselves from nature."

Understanding connections and recognizing the dimensions of things are the learning objectives of the UWC in Freiburg.
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New UWC students visit the former monastery garden – a 2,000-square meter paradise that monks began tending some 500 years ago – already in the first week of school.

Sustainability coordinator Kellner likes to ask the students how many people this patch of soil could nourish. All 200 students? Most think that would be feasible. "No," he then explains, "it would be enough for two families at the most."
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In the special Creativity Activity Service program, students monitor the growth of mangold plants in their self-built greenhouse tunnel using sensors.

There's a school’s internal competition to determine which dormitory is most economical in its use of energy.

The UWC cafeteria has introduced two meat-free days per week.
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Indonesian Bayu has always has a natural affinity for environmental issues: "If we want to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius, we can’t pump more than two tons of CO2 per person per year into the atmosphere." That’s roughly the amount his 14-hour flight home to Indonesia would cost.

So he decided to undertake the return journey to UWC overland: 15,000 kilometers, 24 days to get from Jakarta to Freiburg. In his blog he calls it "Urban Nomadizing".
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"Things are always lively in geography," says Cecilia from South Sudan. "What are they talking about?" she and her fellow African students sometimes wonder when their western classmates present sustainability ideas. Electricity from solar cells? "We have a lot of sun, but no money for solar panels."

South Sudan is racked by civil war and famine. "Sustainability simply doesn’t fit with this reality. People are struggling to survive; they need peace, not sustainability."

back at home, she wanted to tell people about her new knowledge. But there are no words in her language for "climate change," "greenhouse effect," and "sustainability."

More about the school at www.uwcrobertboschcollege.de
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When other people wrinkle their noses, environmental engineer Sherien Elagroudy takes a closer look. She is the first Egyptian to receive a doctorate in the processing of waste.

That was 16 years ago. Today she is a Fellow of the global "Next Einstein Forum" (NEF) and carries her conviction of the value of waste into the world: "I want people to start thinking differently."
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The 41-year-old professor showed the operators of the facility how to extract the plastic, break it down into ever smaller pieces and dry it in the sun, and finally compress it into large bales and sell it to cement plants as fuel.

Two tons of waste are no longer just dumped every day, but are processed into fuel and compost.

If the state provided fewer subsidies for coal, the sustainable fuel made of waste would be in even greater demand. But the government has a huge flaw in its reasoning, says Elagroudy: "They do not consider how well we protect the environment through recycling."
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60.000 people

live as garbage collectors in Cairo: that’s how they earn their living and provide the country with a record-breaking recycling ratio.

60 %

of waste in Egypt is collected; the majority ends up in landfills or fly-tipping sites without any further processing.

22 million tons

of domestic waste are generated in Egypt every year; this volume increases by around 3% each year.

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Convincing people of the value of garbage is at least as great a challenge as the technical difficulties. But Sherien Elagroudy will find a way.

She raised the largest subsidy amounts that have ever been awarded in Egypt: 14 million Egyptian pounds to build a center of excellence:

"On three floors, students will examine waste and improve how it is recycled," she says enthusiastically. "We will bring up an entire new generation of young people with a special awareness of the problem of waste."

More about the Next Einstein Forum at www.bosch-stiftung.de/nexteinsteinforum
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She and a friend loved to cook and often did so, but were always troubled by the huge amounts of plastic waste.

In 2012 they decided to change something. They wrote a business plan and gathered €110,000 of start capital through a crowdfunding project.
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In Milena Glimbowski's shop the customers bring their own containers, jars and jute sacks or borrow some, fill up with what they want in the desired quantity and pay by weight.

In addition to the saved packaging waste, it also has the effect that customers are not obliged to buy pre-defined amounts and therefore throw away less food.
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Shortly after opening, her business partner backed out and Glimbowski was faced with the realization of how difficult it is to run a retail business. Not to mention one dedicated to producing no waste and with all organic products.

She stood behind the counter, did the books, placed orders and researched producers six days a week.
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The "ChangemakerXChange" exchange came exactly at the right time for Milena Glimbowski.

The program brings young social innovators from Europe, Turkey, North Africa and Asia together. They all work on innovative solutions for social, environmental or societal problems in their respective environments. At the exchange meetings, they further develop their initiatives and business models.

"Seeing that there are people my age who have a similar mindset, represent the same values and have already pulled something off impressed and motivated me," Glimbowski says.
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Her small "Original Unverpackt" (original, without packaging) shop has become a brand. There are already dozens of imitators in Germany, and even one in Brazil.

At this point, Glimbowski is seldom in the shop; a branch manager handles the daily business. She is now developing new ideas for her primary concern: avoiding waste and packaging-free shopping.

More about the project at www.changemakerxchange.com
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At farmer Witt's organic farm on the outskirts of Offenburg, the students Dennis, Justin, Yannik and Shane have a task that seemingly has little to do with charcoal: they are collecting the soil samples.

Shane drills the soil probe into the ground. Dennis gives it a forceful whack with the hammer. Yannik scrapes the soil sample and half a worm from the probe. Justin logs the results in a list.
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"Taking samples from the field and measuring how clean the soil is ‒ that’s much more interesting than normal lessons."
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Straw, hay and plant waste - that's the necessary substrate which the students are gathering at the farm. This biomass is the basis for the biochar.
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"Making biochar is a lot of manual labor. We are a lot of students. But how can one farmer do it all by himself?"
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In a coal boiler, the straw and other materials are burning bright. Or so it seems.

Because the students continuously pile on more straw and hay and plant waste, the biomass lacks the oxygen to burn. All that’s really burning is the escaping gas.

What’s left over is solid carbon.
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"I'm surprised how much work organic farming is. But a healthier lifestyle is worth it."
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In the lab, the young researchers have the chance to examine their soil samples and biochar.

Under the two hundredfold magnification, they see the carbonized wood skeleton of the biochar. A single gram of biochar has an almost unimaginable 300 square metres surface area. That’s a lot of space for water and nutrients, microorganisms and heavy metals.
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Like a sponge, biochar is capable of holding water and nutrients and dispensing them gradually over time. It also loosens up the soil. It can even bind heavy metals like cadmium, chromium and copper and thus keep them out of the food chain.

With these features, the biochar is good for both the soil and the climate.

The carbon contained in hay, for example, would quickly be released into the air as CO₂ through decomposition or digestion if it were used for feed or composted. When carbonized, however, the carbon is captured long term.
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"When we want to live in a sustainable way, we have to keep the greenhouse effect down. I did not know that biochar can contribute to that."
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The natural sciences can be captivating, and are also extremely relevant for everyday life and our environment. Conveying this experience is one of the goals of the "Our Common Future" program.

The collaboration aims to create a lasting impact by encouraging more students to pursue a career in the natural sciences following their secondary school years – and thus, in a second step, contribute to making our economy and way of life more sustainable.
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"Sustainability means that the world will be better for the next generation – at least not worse. That is why I like that farmer Witt is doing organic farming. There should be more people doing it!"

More about the project at www.bosch-stiftung.de/ourcommonfuture
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THE ONLY PLACE TO GO

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Since reunification, a third of Anklam's inhabitants have left, and now only 13,000 people live there.

It’s losing its young people, its women and its well-educated. This is gnawing at the seams of civil society and opening up holes which are often filled by nationalist conservative and extreme right-wing networks.

In state elections last September, 26.2 percent of people in Anklam voted for the Alternative for Germany (AfD), and the National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) got 9.3 percent.
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Since 2014, activists from the scouting association have rented the old railway station building and they have a mission: to make it a place where children, teenagers and young adults can meet and get to know each other.
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Everyone comes together at the Demokratiebahnhof: secondary school and special school students, children whose parents vote NPD and children whose parents vote green. And Syrian refugees.
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There’s the garden, the bike workshop, and a rehearsal room for bands. Every week they cook together, and there are talks, music and discussion evenings. Of course, you can also join the scouts.
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There are no full-time administrators, just autonomously organized commitment and co-determination, all on a voluntary basis.

The Robert Bosch Stiftung has been helping to fund the project team’s events as part of its Land Reclaimers (Neulandgewinner) program. The program supports people who strengthen the quality of life of rural areas...
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...people like PuK. She has been working at the Demokratiebahnhof since last September as a social year volunteer.

"We want to make Anklam a better place to live," she says. "People get involved. That makes them want to stay."

She herself is thinking about moving away to study. "But I’ll come back afterwards. You can achieve so much here."
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19-year old Muhammad also wants to stay here. The Syrian has been in Germany for 19 months, 17 of them in Anklam.

"You can tell by a lot of people’s faces that they want to keep their distance. But for me, it's a kind of mission. People know so little about us, so I show them that we can be good people too. They’re learning. Now people say hello to me on the street, even some of the right-wingers."

His mission is to smile, and that’s his contribution towards living together in Anklam.

More about the project at www.neulandgewinner.de
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BACK TO THE ROOTS

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"At the time, no one considered that the new crops had been developed for good soil and fertilizer, and not for the dry and nutrient-poor farmland in Sub-Saharan Africa," explains the 34-year-old geoecologist and biochemist.

"Many plants that are native to Sub-Saharan Africa have developed strategies that help them flourish in especially dry and nutrient-poor soils." Dippold orders soil from Africa to conduct her research on the characteristics of old strains of grain.
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Dippold is convinced of that. That's why the focus of her research is on the rhizosphere, a layer of soil between two and three millimeters thick located directly on the roots of the plant where plants exchange carbon for nutrients.

"It all happens in the rhizosphere. How well a plant grows is decided here," says the researcher.
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In the labs and climate chambers of the University of Göttingen, the scientist wants to find out if it is possible to cultivate high-yield strains that can make use of the adaptation mechanisms of the old strains.

She already has a theory. "There is evidence that plants can significantly improve water absorption by excreting mucilage." The substance she is referring to is a kind of gel that enables a water film to form between the roots and soil particles even during severe droughts. She also suspects that the old strains enter into partnerships with fungus networks, which enables them to be supplied with phosphorus.
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Once she completes her research in the climate chambers, Dippold will test her findings on fields in Sudan and Kenya.

If her findings are confirmed, the next task will be to develop fast, inexpensive tests that enable cultivators to immediately determine whether her new hybrids have the survival strategies that are needed to thrive in Sub-Saharan Africa.

After all, the goal is to feed the rapidly growing population of Africa and the yields of the local types of grain are too low for that.
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More about the Junior Professor at www.bosch-stiftung.de/juniorprofessorship
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HOW SUSTAINABLE IS OUR LIFE?

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POLITICAL MILESTONES

1992 - Earth Summit in Rio: First international agreement on climate change (Agenda 21).
1995 - 1st Climate Change Conference in Berlin
1997 - 3rd Climate Change Conference in Kyoto: First emissions thresholds set for industrialized countries (Kyoto Protocol).
2009 - 15th Climate Change Conference, Copenhagen: Negotiations for a follow-up agreement to the Kyoto Protocol are unsuccessful.
2015 - 21st Climate Change Conference in Paris: Successor agreement to Kyoto; goal of limiting global warming to less than 2°C is formulated.

No poverty

Goal: End poverty in all its forms everywhere.

Founder of the sustainability concept

In 1713, Hans Carl von Carlowitz, chief mining administrator in Saxony, first formulated the concept that only so much wood should be harvested as could grow back.

90 percent

of DAX companies produced their own sustainability reports by 2014.

68 times

how often the term "sustainable" occurs in the current coalition agreement between the German political parties CDU/CSU and SPD.

95 ARTICLES OF CLOTHING

owned by the average German, not including underwear, amount to 5.2 billion. Every fifth piece lies unused in the closet.

OVERSHOOT DAY

We’re living beyond our means ‒ and it's becoming more extreme all the time: in 2016, humanity had consumed all natural resources that the earth can reproduce in a year by August 8. In 1987, that day didn't come until December 19.

End of oil reserves

Although new extraction technologies can delay their exhaustion, oil reserves will nevertheless probably run low before the century is out.

MEAT CONSUMPTION

The average German eats roughly a kilogram of meat per week. Comparison of the required agricultural land for different foods (per kg):

CO₂ FOOTPRINT

To limit global warming to 2 °C we would have to radically reduce the annual per capita CO₂ emissions.

Zero hunger

Goal: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.

Good health and well-being

Goal: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at every age.

Quality education

Goal: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.

Peace, justice and strong institutions

Goal: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.

Ocean overacidification

Corals and algae suffer in particular – with wide-reaching consequences for the entire oceanic food chain.

Soil erosion

Soil degradation, overgrazing and deforestation destroy huge areas every year.

CO₂ emissions

One of the main causes of global warming. If the global temperature rises more than 2°C, uncontrollable consequences for the planet could follow.

Rising sea levels

Melting Arctic ice threatens entire islands, coastal cities and countries like the Netherlands.

Extinction

Up to 130 animal and plant species become extinct daily.

Deforestation

Huge tracts of land are deforested worldwide for timber, raw material extraction and grazing.

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Overview
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Chapter 1 Magazine SUSTAINABILITY

SUSTAINABILITY

Chapter 2 The Stories

The Stories of the Magazine

Chapter 3 Magazine as PDF

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  • Multimedia reportage for the Robert Bosch Stiftung Magazine, #22, June 2017
    A PDF version can be downloaded from www.bosch-stiftung.de.
    Publisher:
    Robert Bosch Stiftung GmbH, Heidehofstraße 31, 70184 Stuttgart, magazin@bosch-stiftung.de
    Chief Executive Officers:
    Uta-Micaela Dürig, Prof. Dr. Joachim Rogall
    Responsible:
    Stefan Schott, Head of Communication
    Editorial team: Julia Rommel (Leitung), Eva Wolfangel, Alexandra Wolters, Marina Kunert (Pageflow)
    Layout and production: C3 Creative Code and Content GmbH, Berlin Druck: J. F. Steinkopf Druck GmbH, Stuttgart
    Texts in the magazine about the projects featured here:
    Bastian Henrichs, Jan Rübel, Markus Wanzeck, Eva Wolfangel, Alexandra Wolters, Kirsten Wörnle

    Credits: Ashoka/Robert Bosch Stiftung, C3, Christoph Püschner, Frank Schultze/Zeitenspiegel, Hadeer Mahmoud, Kathrin Harms, Martin Wagenhan, Phileas Dazeley, Robert Bosch Stiftung, Thomas Hansmann, Tobias Bohm, Traube47

    Impressum Robert Bosch StiftungPrivacy notice