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June 2017 | MAGAZINE#22 13th year year 13th Sustainability 22 # Sustainability Magazine Stiftung Robert Bosch Robert LITTLE CLIMATE SAVERS On the farm, schoolchildren convert straw to biochar. Scientists in the lab show how this protects the climate. REPORT A station for staying put A youth center strengthens democracy in a rural area ‒ and stimulates a whole town. PORTRAIT Rooting out hunger Junior Professor Michaela Dippold researches ancient types of grain. Her aim: to wipe out hunger in Africa. ▶ bosch-stiftung.de ▶ twitter.com/BoschStiftung ▶ facebook.com/RobertBoschStiftung 18 21 o N 22 AT THE UWC IN NO WASTE FREIBURG Shopping with- Contents Sustainability in out packaging lessons EDITORIAL RESEARCH FOR Hans Carl von Carlowitz was a commanding SUSTAINABILITY figure with a stern expression and an opulent 4 MAKING UP GROUND 26 FROM ONE SOURCE wig. As the chief administrator for mining FOR THE CLIMATE Health centers strengthen in the Ore Mountains, he was responsible Children fight global medical coverage in rural for keeping the Electorate of Saxony’s mines warming on the farm areas and metalworks supplied with wood. In 1713 Carlowitz published a book on forestry. When 10 COMPLETELY 28 THE ONLY PLACE TO GO referring to the long-term responsible use SUSTAINABLE? A youth center improves of wood as a resource, he used a new term: An overview town life sustainability. Carlowitz has been famous for this choice of words ever since. 35 The fact that the word is so frequently used 12 BACK TO THE ROOTS 32 A REMEDY FOR WIN-WIN today proves the importance and relevance Can long-forgotten POPULISM Protecting the environment strains of grain put a Essay by Ottmar and making money of the concept that Carlowitz described. stop to hunger in Africa? Edenhofer Nowadays, our understanding of sustainability 28 goes far beyond forestry. At the end of the 20th A STATION that invites century, the Brundtland Commission, which 16 SUSTAINABILITY USE OF OUR RESOURCES you to stay developed prospective development policies SUSTAINABLE IS OF EXISTENTIAL DEVELOPMENT on behalf of the United Nations, mentioned for IMPORTANCE 34 EDUCATION FOR the first time three dimensions of sustainability Interview with Christof TOMORROW – ecological, social and economic – which are all Bosch Initiative helps schools dependent on each other and must therefore and teachers in always be considered jointly. Sub-Saharan countries We at the Robert Bosch Stiftung are IDEAS AND CONCEPTS particularly working on social and ecological FOR A SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY sustainability. Even if we didn’t use the term at 35 CAIRO'S STREETS ARE the time, social sustainability can be regarded 18 THE WHOLE WORLD PAVED WITH MONEY as a guiding principle throughout our work of IN THE GARDEN A scientist shows how the past 53 years. This has been joined in recent The UWC Robert Bosch energy from refuse years by a commitment towards ecological College teaches protects the environment sustainability sustainability. The endowment of a junior professorship in sustainable use of natural 4 12 resources in 2007 was just the beginning. 21 NUDE FOOD 38 IN THE FOUNDATION’S YOUNG SCIENTISTS RESEARCH In the laboratory that fills you up Ecological sustainability has since become an A supermarket with FOCUS and outside important topic in many of the foundation’s no packaging waste Focus areas of our projects, including and especially in Africa. funding work This issue tells you more about some of these projects. 24 PLANNING FOR AN 41 NEWS UNCERTAIN FUTURE News and more from the A discussion on the Stiftung Enjoy your read. sustainable city of tomorrow 43 IMPRINT Yours, UTA-MICAELA DÜRIG JOACHIM ROGALL Photos: Thomas Hansmann, Kathrin Harms, Martin Wagenhan, Tobias Bohm, Hadeer Mahmoud, Frank Schultze/Zeitenspiegel , Title: Martin Wagenhan Schultze/Zeitenspiegel Bohm, Hadeer Mahmoud, Frank Harms, Martin Tobias Thomas Hansmann, Kathrin Wagenhan, Photos: 2 Magazine #22 Sustainability Robert Bosch Stiftung Robert Bosch Stiftung Sustainability Magazine #22 3 Research for sustainability Research for sustainability Taking samples “from the field and measuring the cleanliness of soil is more interesting than normal lessons. ” MAKING UP GROUND FOR THE CLIMATE One day in the mud, one day in the lab: as part of the “Our Common Future” project, the Gengenbach Gymnasium secondary school sends its students to an organic farm and the University of Applied Sciences Offenburg. There they learn how to make charcoal out of straw – and why it helps the environment. by Markus Wanzeck he morning sky is grey, the clouds good deal about why that is good for both the dripping with rain, the temperature sky and the soil. Today at Biohof Witt, they worthy of a refrigerator. Yet the will be in raincoats. And tomorrow, in lab farmer Mr. Witt knows how to warm coats, at the University of Applied Sciences up his guests, who have come down Offenburg. This unusual collaboration Tfrom the Black Forest to his organic farm on between the school and the university is a the outskirts of Offenburg. “There aren’t many project funded by the Robert Bosch Stiftung hares any more,” he says. “They’re threatened as part of the “Our Common Future” program. with extinction. But the few that are left are The production of biochar is a sort of two-fold all right here – eating my organic lettuce.” The answer to both a pedagogic and an ecological students laugh. Laughing helps against the question. cold. Physical labor too. And fire. Nicole Diebold, research assistant at the And this March day holds plenty of all University of Applied Sciences Offenburg, that in store – the students will be learning formulates the educational question as how to make biochar. The 14 students of follows: “In their pre-school years, boys year 8 and 9 from the Marta-Schanzenbach and girls are still very enthusiastic. Later, at Gymnasium in Gengenbach will also learn a school, that tapers off. How can we change ▶ Appearances deceive: what’s burning here is escaping gas, not straw.4 The latterMagazine carbonizes #22 Sustainability Robert Bosch Stiftung Sustainability Magazine #22 5 instead – into biochar. Research for sustainability FURTHER PROJECTS: Space pioneers Students of Vegesack Gymnasium are working together with the Institute of Space Exploration Systems of DLR Bremen to study how plant yields can be increased ▶ that?” The environmental question is LESSONS AT THE FIRE AND in the most resource- how we can make our farming practices IN THE LAB conserving manner possible. more sustainable in view of climate “Good soil should not be too sour The production The research should benefit change and increasingly intensive land or too dense,” explains Lüdecke. “It not only farmers on earth, use. “of biochar is a should also be able to hold nutrients but also space exploration: Daniel Kray, Professor of Process and water.” Like a sponge, biochar is sort of two-fold basic research to support a Engineering at the University of capable of holding water and nutrients mission to Mars! Applied Sciences Offenburg, and his answer to both a and dispensing them gradually over research assistants divide the students time,” explains Kray. It also loosens pedagogic and Good influence into three groups. The first one up the soil. It can even bind heavy In a social science project prepares the steel boiler in which the metals like cadmium, chromium and an ecological between the Karl-von-Closen miracle charcoal will be created. A sec- copper and thus keep them out of the question. Gymnasium in Eggenfelden ond one gathers the requisite substrate: food chain. “Moreover,” adds Lüdecke, and the University of Inns- straw, hay, vegetable waste. The third “biochar offers space for the growth of bruck, students are studying group gets a bucket, a huge hammer, a microorganisms.” Just how it achieves whether environmental soil probe – and a task that seemingly all of these positive things is then a protection projects with has little to do with charcoal: Dennis, matter for the lessons at the fire and in ” youths also help change at- Justin, Yannik and Shane are charged the lab to demonstrate to students. titudes in their families. The with collecting the soil samples. Hands-on While group three continues to chicken: a results will be published. great way make holes in the field, the other two MORE INTERESTING THAN LESSONS to get kids groups have set up the coal boiler, filled Hydrogen in public Together with Kray’s assistant interested in it with substrate and ignited it. The the natural transportation Esmeralda Lüdecke, the boys tramp sciences. straw and other materials are burning Students of the Carl-Frie- off to the field behind a greenhouse for bright. Or so it seems, at any rate. But drich-Gauss Gymnasium in growing parsley; the sloppy ground that’s not the case. “Practically none of Frankfurt (Oder) work with sloshes and slurps as if it would What is the carbon and water content it burns,” says Professor Kray. “Almost scientists from IHP – Innova- swallow them up the next instant. of the soil? And what is its pH value? all of it carbonizes.” As the students tions for High Performance “We have to fill up this bucket!”, calls “Taking samples from the field and continuously pile on more straw and Microelectronics to research Lüdecke through the drizzle. “The measuring how clean the soil is ‒ that’s hay and plant waste, the biomass lacks whether hydrogen-powered important thing is that you don’t take much more interesting than normal the oxygen to burn. All that’s really vehicle use is technically samples parallel to the tractor tracks, lessons,” says Shane, the student team’s burning is the escaping gas: at up to suitable and economical for but diagonally to them.” The youths probe-turner.