| Posted June 25, 2024

“No Company Can Afford to Preserve the Status Quo”

As head of Sustainable Business and Entrepreneurship at the CSCP, Alexander Mannweiler has a good understanding of the challenges businesses face today. He believes that companies that are able to integrate sustainability into their management systems increase their innovation potential and become more competitive. The co-do lab was born out the urgency to scale transformation. If you are, say a small or medium-sized enterprise and business is going well at the moment, why do you need to transform? No company of any size can afford to stand still and preserve the status-quo. The times are too dynamic and the challenges […]

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Lifestyle Test Success: Germany Embraces Sustainable Living with Innovative Carbon Footprint Tool

Nine months after the launch of the Lifestyle Test in Germany, over three thousand German residents have been reached. Additionally, extensive data on key lifestyle hotspots as well as barriers and opportunities for adopting more sustainable lifestyles have been gathered. The Lifestyle Test is a carbon footprint calculator available as a free browser app. It allows individuals to assess their daily environmental impact through a brief test and then offers tailored tips and actions to help them reduce it. The app also supports users in tracking their progress, including the implementation of tips and the reduction of their carbon footprint. […]

| Posted June 24, 2024

UBi Project at “Woche der Umwelt” 2024: Celebrating Biodiversity and Innovation

How can businesses thrive while protecting the environment? At the “Woche der Umwelt” 2024 in Berlin, Germany, the UBi project revealed how integrating biodiversity into corporate strategies drives both sustainability and economic success. The event, which took place at Schloss Bellevue in Berlin, Germany in early June 2024 was hosted by the German Federal President, Frank-Walter Steinmeier and the German Federal Environmental Foundation (DBU) and brought together stakeholders from science, business, politics, and civil society to explore sustainable solutions and foster collaboration. Over the two days of the event, the UBi project stand became a hub for enlightening discussions on […]

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UBi Dialogue Forum 2024: Biodiversity as an Economic Driver

Think about a precise clockwork mechanism: every cog and every gear working in harmony to measure time. Remove a small cog, and the clock stops. The economy and nature share a similar relationship. This year’s UBi Dialogue Forum highlighted this interconnection, bringing together over 300 participants in Berlin, Germany to discuss how the economy can protect biodiversity and why this makes sense both ecologically and economically. Dr. Jan-Niclas Gesenhues, Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry for the Environment emphasised that “Environmental and nature conservation are the foundation of value creation.” With 70 % of companies relying on at least […]

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“Social Sustainability is Central to a Good Life for All”

Nils Kreft has joined our CSCP Communication Team with a background in psychology, business and economics. He is passionate about improving social sustainability in our daily lives, particularly in urban contexts. Learn more about his work at the CSCP to advance this and other important sustainability goals. In your work at the CSCP you place importance on recognising all three levels of sustainability (ecological, economical, and social). Do you think they are given due attention in the sustainability agenda? I find that the mainstream conversations about economic sustainability, for example, often lack consideration of the other two aspects. At the […]

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The Bergisch City-Triangle: Germany’s First FAB Region in the Making

The CSCP is collaborating on a project to establish the Bergisch city-triangle as Germany’s first FAB Region. This will position the region in the Fab City network as one of more than 50 cities and regions worldwide committed to bringing production back to the local level while strengthening sustainability, circularity, and open-source knowledge sharing. A few months after its launch, the FAB Region Bergisch city-triangle project (FAB Region Bergisches Städtedreieck), a pioneering initiative aimed at contributing to a sustainable and circular economic transformation within the cities of Wuppertal, Remscheid, and Solingen, has reached its first important milestones. The project partners […]

| Posted June 21, 2024

Want to Cook Like a Winner? – Download our KochCup Cookbook Now!

Few other things have the ability to bring people together and create shared experiences like sports and food do. Our KochCup combines the two to draw attention to the importance of shifting toward healthier and more sustainable diets. The project wants to use the momentum of the European Men’s Football Championship, taking place from 14 June to 14 July 2024, to spread inspiration and ignite action on making healthy and sustainable food the norm. As part of the project, chef trainees across Germany were invited to join a cooking contest and create innovative, healthy, tasty, and sustainable recipes. After months […]

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Our ARABICA Project Has Launched: Promoting Sustainable Coffee Value Chains

Brazil is the leading global coffee producer, supplying about one third of the world’s coffee. The coffee industry is a strong pillar of the country’s economy, but comes at the cost of water pollution, habitat destruction, and topsoil erosion – to name a few. Socio-economic issues such as low wages and inequalities affecting coffee farmers only add to the challenge. In our new project, ARABICA, we will focus on addressing these pressing sustainability issues related to coffee production in Brazil. Funded under the European Union AL-INVEST scheme, the project stands for promoting sustainability, equity and transparency in the Brazilian coffee […]

| Posted June 20, 2024

The Handprint Approach: A More Holistic Take on Sustainability Impact

Unlike the widely known carbon footprint, which measures the negative impact individuals or organisations have on the environment, the handprint assessment follows a more holistic approach. By capturing the amount of savings on greenhouse gas emissions that a product or service can offer, the handprint also takes into account important social and economic dimensions and promotes biodiversity, ecological health, and increased social wellbeing. In 2015, the CSCP, together with the Centre for Sustainability Management of the Leuphana University Lüneburg, the University of Hohenheim, and the Center for Sustainable Leadership of the University of Witten/Herdecke embarked on a research journey on […]

| Posted June 17, 2024

Increasing the Recyclability and Circularity of Plastic Packaging: Learnings from Best Practices

As multi-layer packaging is designed by binding together different materials, separating the layers for recycling is particularly challenging. Innovations in design and recycling as well as new approaches on a policy and consumer behaviour level could be a way to achieve higher recycling rates and better recycling quality. The report “Guidelines on Increasing the Recyclability and Circularity of Plastic Packaging” shares good practices on how to increase the quality and rate of multi-layer packaging recycling. Currently, the lack of specialised technologies for sorting and recycling multi-layer packaging and concerns over the quality of recycled material contribute to low rates of […]

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