Reminder Award ceremony: Successful transfer from teaching to business

On 14 April 2021, the Eco-Good Award will be presented for the fourth time at the Faculty of Sustainable Business at Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development (HNEE). Students were invited to submit their projects that provide impetus for social change in terms of environmental awareness. To this end, 17 current transfer projects on various sustainability topics were submitted, including, for the first time, a project that focussed on GLG Gesellschaft für Leben und Gesundheit mbH.

How sustainable is your own company and what opportunities do regional organisations have to improve their environmental management? These are the questions that the students deal with in the "Corporate Environmental Management" module at HNEE. They also look at specific examples from practice. In the winter semester, students worked with GLG Gesellschaft für Leben und Gesundheit mbH for the first time on an ecomapping project. "The aim was to create ecomaps for various sub-areas, i.e. rooms in the outdoor area of the Werner Forßmann Hospital in Eberswalde. The purpose of the ecomapping was to evaluate the campus in terms of emissions, microclimate and traffic in order to develop options for improvement in the future," says Irene Köppe, Deputy Head of Corporate Development at GLG. Since autumn 2020, she has been working with a group of students to collect and evaluate sufficient data about their own campus. The result was, for example, a survey on car park usage among employees at the site. Many suggestions for improving the situation on site could be derived from this, as Irene Köppe explains: "For example, the students recommended that the car park lighting could be made more sustainable and the outdoor seating could be made more attractive. The idea of greening the exterior walls to reduce noise and optimise air quality is also very interesting." As a next step, the GLG is now examining how this and other proposals can be implemented in the medium term.

Something similar is happening in the HNEE budget department. Students and employees discussed the topic of sustainable procurement: "The group developed a form that takes greater account not only of ecological aspects but also of social justice in future procurement procedures," reports Dirk Range, an employee in the Procurement/Third Party Funding department. The students were guided by the core labour standards of the International Labour Organization (ILO) and used them to develop a query that makes it easier to understand the value and supply chains of production processes. "If these aspects are taken into account by even more public clients in the future, we can work together to appeal to the ecological and socially responsible conscience of globally active companies and corporations and thus ensure a sustainable improvement in production processes," says Dirk Range confidently.

Both project groups have been nominated for HNEE's annual Eco-Good Award with their proposals. This makes them two of a total of five groups that have prevailed over 16 other projects in an initial pre-selection by the jury, which includes permanent members Prof Thoralf Buller (initiator), Prof Alexander Conrad and Prof Armin Thoma as well as one or two guest jurors from science and/or practice.
Other groups focussed on the canteens operated by the Studentenwerk Frankfurt/Oder on the Wald and Stadtcampus and other internal procurement issues at the university. "This year's participation was particularly high and thematically very diverse. This also shows how extensive and important the topic of environmental management is in regional companies. The exchange is also a unique example of the transfer between teaching and practice at HNEE," says Prof Thoralf Buller, lecturer and module leader at the Faculty of Sustainable Business. Buller is also Professor of Corporate Management and Human Resources Management at the bbw University of Applied Sciences in Berlin.

The Eco-Good Award is sponsored by the Centre for Sustainable and Innovative Concepts (ZENIKPlus). Its aim is to promote the good life. The centre networks people and institutions from science and practice. Head of the supporting institution HNEE is Prof Dr Alexander Conrad. On the part of the cooperation partner bbw, the centre is headed by Prof. Dr Thoralf Buller. It is the result of activities of the WIR! innovation alliance region 4.0, which develops and implements technical, social and ecological innovations in various fields of action in the Barnim, Uckermark and Uecker-Randow regions.

SAVE THE DATE

On 14 April 2021, the Eco-Good Award will be presented at the Faculty of Sustainable Business at Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development (HNEE) from 11 a.m. to 11.45 a.m. in the virtual room due to the current coronavirus restrictions. This year, the winners will be announced by Benjamin Raschke, co-chair of the Alliance 90/The Greens parliamentary group in the Brandenburg state parliament, in the presence of the student projects and the expert jury. Prof Dr Thoralf Buller (lecturer at HNEE and professor at the bbw University of Applied Sciences) will present the award. He will also provide a photo of himself (motif: prize in hand in front of the screen).

The time frame - award ceremony followed by a discussion round:

10.45 a.m. Admission to the room
11.00 a.m. Welcome by Thoralf Buller
11.05 a.m. Greeting from the faculty by Alexander Conrad
11.15 a.m. Laudation by the co-chairman of the Bündnis90/Grüne parliamentary group in the Brandenburg state parliament, Benjamin Raschke
11.25 a.m. Presentation of the nominees via moving image
11.30 a.m. Announcement of the winners by Benjamin Raschke
11.35 a.m. Presentation of the award by Thoralf Buller
11.40 a.m. Words of thanks from the winners
11.45 a.m. to 11.50 a.m. Farewell and outlook from Thoralf Buller

From 12 noon change to a new virtual room with Benjamin Raschke, organised by Jana Reimann-Grohs (until max. 1 pm):

Those responsible for two Eco-Good Award projects from 2020 will present their content and put it up for discussion.
Among other things, the focus will be on how the topic of mobility is currently impacting businesses and how it will impact them in the future - Björn Wiese (CleanFleet Eberswalde) will report on his experiences as the owner of a private bakery. Lukas Steingässer will provide information about previous TinyForest developments in the Uckermark.

IMPORTANT: As a representative of the press, please only join the award ceremony and subsequent discussion round as an audience member due to the limited video coverage available!!! You can make yourself known in writing via the live chat.

For technical enquiries/interviews, please use the e-mail address provided for Thoralf Buller. He will be happy to reply in connection with the award ceremony after an initial written contact as soon as the online conferences have ended.

Further information

Eco-Good Award at the HNEE since 2018

About ZENIK Plus
The centre is run by the Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development (HNEE) and cooperates with the bbw University of Applied Sciences Berlin (bbw). It is thus a centre of universities of applied research which, in addition to research and teaching, are primarily committed to transfer. The exchange with science, business and society as well as the concrete, participatory involvement of civil society are a particular characteristic of the centre.

Note on image material
The photos available here may be used for reporting purposes. Please note the copyright notice © HNEE / Florian Reischauer