Maja Göpel is considered one of the smartest minds in Germany when it comes to tomorrow’s economy. She says we have long known what it takes to avert the climate catastrophe and continue to live a good life on Earth. We just need to have the courage to do it.
Many decision-makers focus too much on increasing efficiency when it comes to sustainability, instead of using the change as an opportunity for more effective business and completely new business models.
Sustainable companies are in demand. Many investors no longer want environmentally harmful companies. Large corporations are responding to this by spinning off divisions that emit a lot of climate-damaging CO2, for example. This is called a “carve-out.”
According to Angelika Breinich-Schilly of Springer Fachmedien, the most important investment criteria for German investors are security, return and transparency. Union Investment asked Generation Z about sustainability and found that most young adults want to ensure greater sustainability with energy savings, nutrition and less travel.
A recently adopted EU directive stipulates that significantly more companies than before must disclose in their annual reports how their actions affect the environment and society. Now some fear that this will overburden smaller companies in particular.
Leading auditors support the goal proclaimed by politicians to ensure a sustainable restructuring of the economy with rules and key figures. “This challenge must be accepted,” said Melanie Sack, deputy spokeswoman for the board of auditors IDW, at an information event on Tuesday. “From our point of view, this is an opportunity,” said Klaus-Peter Naumann, spokesman for the IDW.
The Union calls on the government to use carbon dioxide industrially to become climate neutral. In addition, the parties want to use nuclear energy longer. The CDU is in favor of storing carbon dioxide underground and processing it in industry. The party wants to achieve the German climate targets by 2045. In industry, “residual emissions” would still occur after 2045, according to a motion by the Union faction in the Bundestag, which is available to the Handelsblatt. Germany wants to be largely climate-neutral by 2045.
Specifically, the Union faction calls for a “strategy process” that clarifies how and where CO2 could be separated, transported and stored in the future – abroad and “perspectively also in domestic storage facilities”. So far, the so-called “Carbon Capture and Storage” (CCS) has hardly been possible in Germany, because the countries can ban underground CO2 storage facilities on their territory.
Researchers at the University of Cambridge have developed a system that can convert waste into chemical products using renewable energy.
The technology can transform two streams of waste – greenhouse gases and plastic – into two sustainable fuels – syngas and glycolic acid – at the same time. This is the first time the process has been achieved using a solar-powered reactor.
Approximately 300 million tonnes of plastic waste – an amount equivalent to the weight of the human population – are produced every year, according to the UN Environment Programme. However, only 9 per cent is recycled, leaving the rest to accumulate in landfills or pollute our oceans with microplastics. Chemical recycling, where plastic is converted into fuels, requires extremely high temperatures. The high cost and inefficiency of this process act as disincentives, but this new solar powered system could change that…
In its bid to reduce carbon emissions in the city, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has constituted a Climate Action Cell, comprising experts in the field and representatives of concerned organisations, which met for the first time on Thursday to decide the city’s strategy to achieve carbon neutrality.
The civic body has formed an executive committee and working group under the dedicated cell. It expressed the need to prepare a Climate Action Plan for which a greenhouse gas emission inventory is needed and carbon emissions have to be measured…
Torsten van Dullemen is general manager of the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, the group’s area vice president of operations, and became group director of sustainability in April. He said Mandarin Oriental already seeks out suppliers who offer the most sustainable options, explaining: “Not only are we promoting and helping those who actually care as much as we do about sustainability, but we’re also pushing this responsibility further down the supply chain. We’re not going to accept everything being wrapped in single-use plastic, because we are part of this process and we have an opportunity to extend our influence.”