Brain Food for Pioneering Spirits: Can an economy actually be sustainable, or is that a contradiction in terms — and who ends up paying for it? In Room #877 of the Deep Talk Club, under our overarching theme “Pioneering Spirit with brAIn,” the group digs into a tin-can factory’s 30-million-euro sustainability investment, the recycling “lie” behind the green dot, greenwashed ESG funds, and why buying secondhand is often cheaper but rarely chosen. Listen in on the examples that came up and the perspectives that emerged in dialogue…
Note: This session was recorded live in German as part of the Deep Talk Club, so the video above is German-language audio only. What follows is an English translation of the conversation, lightly edited for readability — the back-and-forth between the moderator and participants is preserved, but the original timestamps and speaker names have been left out.
A wonderful good morning to you all. Today we’re talking about economy and sustainability, and want to explore the question, how can the economy be thought and shaped sustainably? And can it even be thought and shaped sustainably at all, or does that simply not work in connection with the economy? We can pick up various terms here, various examples — things like circular economy, sustainable business practices are a few keywords that can flow in here. And I think we can open up a lot of very different, diverse facets here, because it’s also a huge field when we talk about the economy. What actually falls under this? And I’m really curious what impulses, thoughts, first associations come to mind for you with economy and sustainability. So you’re all very warmly invited to join in, get into the exchange, and through the various thoughts you bring in, create a framework for reflection here today in dialogue, to see where the whole thing develops. For anyone joining for the first time today, or as a reminder, the room gets recorded for the entire time, and anyone who joins automatically agrees that the whole thing gets recorded and published afterward. And we have three small room rules — a profile photo where you’re clearly recognizable, last name, and at least one sentence in your bio. Anyone who doesn’t want that for whatever reason is welcome to use the chat to bring in various thoughts, and then I can pick up one thing or another over the course of the next 60 minutes accordingly. Right, and with that I’ll gladly mute myself and see who’d like to start the round with me this morning. A wonderful good morning, dear Marc. What do you say about this topic?
Good morning to the round. I’d like to start with a different question. I thought about the topic and looked closely at your headline. Thank goodness, for me thank goodness, you didn’t use the word “one” — as in, what can “one” do — but rather how can, wait, how can we shape economy and sustainability. And the background for what I’m about to say is simply this — when I think about the economy, or about friends who are managing directors, managing directors in business right now, GmbH managing directors, get paid for achieving their targets, and sustainability isn’t factored into that, at least not initially. Because if I hit a revenue target, a customer target, I get my bonus, and so the managing director’s primary interest is that his company makes a profit, because that’s what he gets paid for, that’s what he gets evaluated on. And the second thing, about the word “one” — that would’ve bothered me per se, because when you say “one,” I look around the room and I don’t think there’s a major entrepreneur here — entrepreneur, sorry, I don’t mean the self-employed, who are of course entrepreneurs too, but someone with a factory — and we also need to be clear, I’ll get to sustainability in a moment, but we need to be clear that sustainability means huge investments. That’s not one euro, that goes into the millions, at least into the hundreds of thousands and into the millions. And if we always say, what can “one” do, that’s finger-pointing again — you place the responsibility on others, you discuss for an hour what could be done, oh, that’s great, but none of us actually pays for it upfront. And that’s why, for me, the very first aspect is starting with myself — what can I do. And that includes the fact that, years ago, I decided not to buy the newest phone every year, my favorite brand, and to use my computers as long as they still work, and my computers last a long time, since I only need the computer for email, I don’t need the newest, I don’t need the fastest. And I’ve managed to still send emails to China with a computer that’s ten years old. That’s my starting point, as a preface.
Yes, thank you, thank you so much. And of course there are very, very different levels here. First, approaching it from a purely factual level — what all falls under this, what different examples exist — independent of whether it’s thought of individually, entrepreneurially, or on a societal level. And then you can also look very specifically from various perspectives, the various target groups mentioned, for example, or who can actually pitch in here at all. So we can open up the perspective from very different angles, so to speak, and the goal of this room is actually to open up different perspectives here too, to look, independent of how much influence I have, in inverted commas, as an individual, at what I can do on one hand, and at the same time also create awareness, even if I might not have direct and immediate influence, of what it means on the other levels too — and here especially with this idea of raising awareness and education, in inverted commas, to create awareness here too. Marc, would you like to add to that too?
Yes, I have to, I hope this comes through okay, my Bluetooth connection seems to be flickering — I’ll speak into the phone directly now. No, that was just the intro, of course, that’s not today’s topic. What’s always important to me is that the quality of the questions determines the quality of our expectations, and questions like “what can one do?” — I notice this in myself — take away my own responsibility. It’s a great question when you sit down together, always “what could one do?” or “what can one do?”, because then you never really engage with the topic in depth, because, well, it’s not my fault if the evil entrepreneur doesn’t do anything — but actually, I can do a lot. And to get to the topic — what one can do — there are regulations for that too, and by now banks pursue a green policy too. Green policy means, if I want a loan from the bank for my company, the bank also checks, is this a sustainable company, what do I make money with, what are my materials like, and so on. So from the banking side, the finance side too — I need money, after all, to keep moving forward — pressure gets put on companies, or let’s say, pressure isn’t a nice word, motivation gets handed to companies, so an entrepreneur also thinks, okay, if I buy this machine now, or if I pursue this policy, will I get an easier loan for my company in the future, to be able to keep growing.
Yes, thank you, thank you so much, and here, especially on the individual level, we have the option to actually keep going back into this question from various perspectives, or look, independent of whether it’s consumer goods — you just brought up the topic of financing, or similar — to always look at what I’m using, or what I’m sourcing for myself, in one place or another, and then ask myself, is this sustainable too? So we could probably open up a lot of examples here, similar to financing. That can start with food, that can start with products I use privately. So there are countless examples where we could look more closely, as individuals too. Do you have further examples, fields you’d like to open up, Marc?
Yes, I brought an example too, again from the entrepreneurial side. I found this really interesting. I won’t say the name, but I saw a report about a company that makes tin cans, and it was exactly about the topic of sustainability. And I said at the start, sustainability costs money too — you can’t just do it. So this company invested 30 million to become more sustainable. And they became more sustainable by, first, equipping their entire roof with a solar system, so now they self-produce a large part of the energy they need for production, and no longer need to buy it. And the second thing they used — the machines generate heat, certain machines generate heat to make these tin cans, and this heat gets extracted and used for heating in winter, it no longer just escapes outside. In winter it’s used for heating, and in summer for cooling. And the third point where they became more sustainable is that they collected the waste from the tin can production — that got captured, and with the waste generated during production, you could make new cans again, because they also made sure, when purchasing materials, that they’re recyclable, so waste can get reused. That’s a totally wonderful idea when you tell it like that, but as an entrepreneur you first have to be willing — do I invest 30 million in my company, and will my customer pay for that too? It’s not just about being nature-friendly and sustainable — I don’t think anyone would answer the question “do you like being sustainable?” with no. Just like the question “do you not care about nature?” won’t be answered with no either. Or the question “do you not care about animals?” — nobody will answer that with no either. It’s just that you also see it at the checkout — organic products often get left on the shelf, not because people don’t think about animal welfare, but because it’s sometimes determined by rules, or by their own wallet, that you simply can’t be sustainable.
Yes, wonderful, thank you, thank you so much. And here the question arises, first, what’s actually meant by sustainable, or sustainability, in this context? Because sustainability could be an entire chain, all the way to the recycling aspect at the end — what happens with waste products and so on. But sustainability could also mean, well, here too there are different interpretations, maybe of the terms too, especially when we think toward wind power and similar things, we’ve established that with a lot of topics, on closer inspection it becomes clear that you can also question whether the suggested sustainability or environmental friendliness or similar actually holds up, in one place or another, depending on how far we look at this chain, in inverted commas, whether it’s really that sustainable. So this term “sustainability” too, which is certainly interpreted very differently by different people, on one hand. And on the other hand, you brought up these costs and so on — so who’s actually willing to bear these costs? So, for example, on one hand here in this concrete example, regarding the entrepreneur and the company. Then on the other hand we also have the customer, who, for example, also does price comparisons with classic products, and tends to look for where they can get it cheaper, in inverted commas, if it’s not tied to a specific brand or something. And then with this aspect of sustainability and recycling — the term “recycling” itself, I find that really exciting to look at more closely too, because even if we look at other fields in general — let me pick up this aspect too, with, for example, the “green dot” recycling symbol or something — how sensible is that actually? If you look a bit behind the scenes and see what actually happens with it, the question arises whether something’s actually being suggested here that’s good in concept per se, but doesn’t actually work in implementation, and fails in various places, so to speak. And especially this recycling aspect, viewed in connection with investments and money, is a really important aspect that can be picked up here. Because, for example, exactly with what ends up in the green recycling bin, that’s exactly the idea behind recycling. But if you look at the chains, what actually happens with it, you’ll find that because it’s cheaper for companies to produce new packaging, the decision actually gets made to produce new packaging again, instead of using recycled products or recycling products and reusing them. And that’s exactly the phenomenon that this ends up amounting to, in one place or another. And so the question arises, how sustainable — does it need more of a rethink here, does it need regulations, what exactly does it need for the economy as a whole to function sustainably? Or what aspects ultimately come together here? Those are maybe a few different questions as impulses. I’d like to warmly invite the others to join in too, to open up various examples, perspectives on the topic, to enable different approaches too, in this exchange, to bring in various thoughts, bring in examples, so we can then look together, in this exchange, where the whole thing leads us. I’m curious where we’ll end up together in dialogue afterward. Marc, feel free to tie in with the various examples, or bring up further examples too.
Yes, why this room was important to me today — you mentioned at some point, dear Yasemin, that you’re also very interested in bringing about change in society. And that’s what drives you, as I understand it, to do these rooms too. And this change — we also talked about how our brain works — and that’s why this room was so important to me, not to first list points about how to be sustainable, but simply to start with understanding yourself. And I brought another example with me — when it comes to, and I find this outrageous, and I’m glad this law has now been banned — there are hybrid vehicles in Germany, which sounds great at first — you can drive part of the way on gasoline and part on electricity. But if you go to a big car dealer and ask them, hey, what do you think of these? Then the reason why field sales reps drive all these luxury cars — field reps drive more than 15 kilometers, which is what a hybrid vehicle can manage on electric. The only reason, or, sorry, you have to be careful, there are many reasons why hybrid vehicles got bought, and it’s not that you can drive on battery, but because they only get taxed at half a percent. And those are, for me, important points to look at in this discussion too. So the people who ordered a hybrid vehicle as a company car didn’t order it because they thought, great, when I don’t have a business trip, meaning on the weekend, I’m allowed to use my vehicle privately, then I’ll drive my big BMW, Mercedes, or Audi or whatever to Cologne, not on diesel, but on battery, I can manage the 50 kilometers. But if you ask car manufacturers who sell these vehicles, they’ll tell you that when these vehicles get returned after a three-year lease, the parts you need for charging, these connector pieces, are usually still in their original packaging. That was just an example too. And if we want to change something, if sustainability really matters to us, then we have very, very small options to start with ourselves in daily life, because the pressure a consumer has with their purchasing power, with their money, becomes enormously large, the more people join in.
Yes, thank you, thank you so much. This raises the question for me of whether sustainability always has to mean something gets more expensive too. Especially if we pick up this aspect of “who pays for it,” in inverted commas, or “who’s willing to pay for it,” and tie into this field too. I’m starting with myself, in inverted commas — what else does sustainability mean? Is it always tied to financial means, or can you actually think economy and sustainability without it immediately meaning higher investments, the willingness of customers in their purchasing and consumption behavior and so on, not just looking at prices or something? So, is it always coupled with something getting more expensive, or can sustainability be created in the economy in other ways too? That would be an interesting question to raise here too. And I saw that Sabine wrote something in the chat regarding sustainability — at some banks, unrenovated houses with energy class H don’t get financed. Well, we could of course look more closely at that from these various perspectives too. And regarding the question of why only two people are speaking in the round — because so far only two have joined, well, I opened the room and Marc joined. You’re all warmly invited to join in too. Just a quick reminder again, the room is being recorded and will be published afterward. So, if anyone joins, they automatically agree to that. And then we have three small room rules — a profile photo where you’re clearly recognizable, last name, and at least one sentence in your bio. Anyone who doesn’t want that for whatever reason of course has the option to bring in one comment or another via chat instead. Right, and it probably makes sense too, especially with this term — does sustainability have to cost a lot of money, in inverted commas, and what other factors play a role here, especially if we look at the combination of economy and sustainability — not just looking toward consumption and application, so to speak, but gladly opening up further doors too. And Jürgen has joined us. A wonderful good morning, dear Jürgen. I’m curious what you have to say about this topic.
Good morning, dear Yasemin. Good morning, dear Marc, and everyone else in the room. I really want to keep it short today, but I feel triggered now, and I’ll gladly pick up on what you said at the end — what other factors need to be taken into account? And as always, I’ll stick to the terminology. Sustainability is clearly, globally, defined and consists of three factors — one, I’ll say this value-free, an economic perspective, an ecological perspective, and — sorry, I lost my train of thought — a social perspective, sorry for the hiccup. So the title of today’s room, “Economy and Sustainability,” focuses on one sub-area of the three pillars of sustainability. I’m firmly convinced that anything meant to become effective, whether on a political level or on an individual level, as Marc very clearly laid out in part, only works within this triangle. Example from me — if we commit to limiting our clothing needs, and not chasing every hype, the consequence is that some companies, let me say this carefully, are led to rethink their product strategy. That’s the economic aspect — and also the ecological aspect, always reducing new purchases, always new things, always more, always better, has an effect on the economic part, and this economic aspect, from the company’s perspective, inevitably also touches the third pillar, namely the social aspect, that this can potentially lead to job losses — and the example is well known, especially in countries like India and Bangladesh regarding the clothing industry, where these people are dependent on our consumption behavior of always more, always better, always further. So I’d just like to give one more pointer here, to grasp the complexity of this topic. There’s a really good source — I can’t manage to pull it up right now, I wanted to post this link. There’s a really well-made page, I think, from the Federal Statistical Office, the German Statistical Office, which references these 17 global sustainability goals that the UN adopted years ago already. That’s, for me, the global meta-level. And Germany, like probably all other countries, especially European countries, has broken down these 17 global goals into national goals, and developed a catalog of criteria too — what criteria sustainability is based on, and what measures can be taken. I went into detail on this too, that’s how far I got — favorite topic, education, what do we understand by that. So this is a really interesting starting point for anyone interested in the topic, and I’ll try again to share this link with you, but as I said, if you search “sustainability,” “UN charter sustainability,” and “sustainability in the Federal Republic,” you’ll find this page. Thank you for listening.
Yes, wonderful, thank you, thank you so much. And if you find it over the next half hour, so to speak, feel free to post the link in the chat too. Marc, would you like to add to that too?
Yes, first of all, dear Jürgen, I underline everything you said. But what’s frightening — let me give an example. You brought up the textile industry, and you’re completely right, but for causal reasons it just won’t work that way. I won’t say the name, but there’s a big textile company in Asia that’s currently on everyone’s lips. In the last, the Corona year, it quadrupled its revenue. And just so you have a sense of it, this isn’t a cheap provider, it’s an ultra-budget provider. This company has existed since 2015, made 150 million in revenue in 2015, and is now growing toward 8 billion US dollars. This company isn’t currently worried about sustainability at all — it’s going to conquer the world market, Zara and Zalando are going to have problems, and so on and so forth. So there are always these frightening examples too, and it simply starts with us, and that’s why I keep coming back to us. As long as we’re willing to buy ourselves eight new T-shirts every year, and you know a T-shirt needs 5,000 liters of water, and so on, it’s really difficult. That only works with either boycotts or education. What you said makes total sense to me — it starts with education, so that everyone who buys a piece of clothing, or buys a phone, knows what that means in terms of sustainability. And thankfully there are already some approaches from manufacturers too. I don’t know how other phone brands do it, but if you return used smartwatches, or used phones, for example, you get a discount on your new phone, and so on. That’s at least, for me, a small suggestion, or a small opportunity, to contribute to sustainability. And things have changed at our place too — at my company, at the start, the caps we distributed were individually wrapped, and then we said, I don’t want that anymore, because you can imagine, past a certain quantity, these plastic bags really bothered me, and we decided pretty early on that we’d only use one bag — which is bad enough — one bag with as many caps bundled together as possible, so they don’t get dirty in the box, but not every single item needs to be individually wrapped, and there Yasemin is right again, an investment or sustainability doesn’t always mean money there. And the second step we took — if a customer asks, when can I get my caps, well, it’s bad enough that they come across the ocean — ships are among the biggest polluters — so we said, we always wait until we have a full container. So we won’t, if it’s possible at all, unless there’s a really compelling customer reason, deliver caps before a container is full, because we want to bring as much as possible to Germany in one shipment, and you have to tell customers, listen, when can you get your goods? I can only answer that with two questions. It depends on how much I sell in the meantime — you’ll have to wait, because it’s just not sustainable to fly individual items over, or possibly ship them to Europe by air, and that can sometimes take two to three weeks longer.
Yes, thank you, thank you so much, and this makes it clear that a lot of really different aspects come together here, and to build the connection again to the question I brought up earlier, does sustainability always necessarily mean something gets more expensive — I’d like to add a thought here too. I’d claim that sustainability doesn’t necessarily always cause more costs, depending on which areas we look at. Now, for example, delivery times got mentioned — whether I’m willing to accept waiting times or something, to act in a more gentle, or environmentally gentle, or sustainable way. That’s one factor. Then the question arises, does it always have to be new products? So the topic of throwaway culture, to some extent, at that point. How many of us, for example, in various fields, use the option of, let’s say, researching and consuming or shopping second-hand? Of course opinions can differ there, depending on what kind of products it’s about, where you might say, for various reasons, I don’t want that for this or that topic. But especially regarding this aspect of sustainability, this could actually mean that, if I think in the direction of second-hand for example, I could even, with high probability, save money there — so sustainability, in this context, doesn’t necessarily mean it costs more money, but rather costs less money, and still, if you look at this, even when you look at platforms like eBay in general, or eBay classifieds, or neighborhood forums, or similar, where these kinds of opportunities open up too, and then simply talk to people who regularly list things there, and so on, you’ll find, depending on what kind of products it is, whether it’s electronics or more textiles, or children’s items or similar, very different experiences too. Let me open up one area — something we know from kids, they grow out of their things relatively quickly, they often have a lot of toys, or something like a baby’s starter kit, that can cost an unfathomable amount of money, in inverted commas. That starts with the crib, maybe the stroller, or or or, and if you look more closely at this market and observe it, it’s still the case that second-hand-wise it’s really, really difficult, both to get rid of things, in inverted commas, and also in terms of people’s willingness to spend, in second-hand, for these originally unfathomably expensive items, all the way to things simply not selling at all for many weeks, months. That means people apparently prefer to just go out and buy new, and are even willing to spend a decent amount of money for it, in inverted commas, when you look at what these things cost, instead of maybe coming up with the idea. And there we’re back at the topic, or the aspect, of rethinking. So not just what’s possible or conceivable, or from which different facets you can look at the whole thing, how you can make it affordable, in inverted commas, but also where it already makes sense per se, where it would already be cheap, or cheaper, in this context, and at the same time more sustainable too, if you acted differently — still, in a lot of places, these kinds of options simply don’t get used in the first place. And Sabine has now directly asked to speak on this. So I imagine this connects directly — I’ll bring you in right away, Sabine, and then we can gladly make cross-connections too.
Yes, good morning. I’ll just be here briefly.
Dear Sabine, I can’t hear you anymore right now. I don’t know if that’s my network or yours — let’s try again please.
Yes, can you hear me now? Yes, now I can hear you, exactly. The connection is at my parents’ place. Okay, I’ll just be here briefly. We tried back then to get a used stroller, but not for sustainability reasons, just for price reasons, and browsed around a bit, but I think that’s also an education point, because the moment you have a child and you’re happy, you spend money endlessly, that was our impression. I completely agree with you there — it’s insane what goes on in that area. But I think that’ll turn around with the education aspect, and just asking, isn’t it a bit more sustainable if we don’t get the absolute newest, and if we need it twice — we have three kids, we needed it three times, we needed the same thing three times. We were already sustainable there. What else I wanted to say about sustainability, a general insight into the finance industry — it’s endlessly sustainable right now. I just wonder whether it’s sustainable because it wants to be sustainable, or whether that’s the hype, because there’s a lot of greenwashing involved too. You’ve already seen that with DWS — a lady left the company there and spilled the beans a bit. Not all the funds labeled ESG were really sustainable — ESG stands for sustainable, that’s “Economic, Social, Governmental,” and right now everyone’s eager to get this logo, or this seal. And in the insurance industry too, not a day goes by without two, three emails coming in — we also got a new sustainable fund added. But there too, who actually buys that? In the end, it’s again the people who engage with it from an education standpoint. Because I think, if the insurance agent says, I have this product like this, and doesn’t include a sustainable fund, and the other person doesn’t even ask about it, then they’ll just get it that way too. That’s also heavily hyped right now on the sales side. We, from the construction financing side, are also supposed to act as modernization advisors, so we recommend renovation to people, to get into better energy classes. Of course all of that has a CO2 factor too, that makes a lot of sense too, but there too, at least in construction financing, it costs money, because you can’t modernize without money. People are under the impression that it doesn’t cost money — no, it does cost money now, and that money pays for itself over the next 20, 30 years. But there’s a thinking error in there too, because people first need to have the money on the table today, or get the option to have it financed by the bank, and that’s the crux of it. If you sell an old house, you look for buyers — the young ones can’t finance that much. So on that side, I’m back at, it costs money.
Yes, thank you, thank you so much, and this raises the question too, if that gets supported by the bank, or put into focus, is that done, in inverted commas, out of the bank’s own entrepreneurial interests, so to speak, to grant bigger loans, earn more through interest, or is it actually the idea of sustainability behind it. Then this aspect you brought up, with the seals — that this ultimately gets used for marketing, in inverted commas, but ultimately also makes it difficult for the consumer, or the user, depending on which context we’re looking from, to really differentiate. Then of course there are various approaches too, where on one hand you work with seals, on the other hand maybe you can trace supply chains or similar, but that doesn’t necessarily make the complexity simpler, in inverted commas, but rather means that, basically, for every product, every service, and so on, we need to engage with it from many different perspectives, to really not just be aware, in inverted commas, but actually have real clarity, or gain real clarity. Jürgen wanted to add something, then Sabine signaled again, and then Marc, in that order please. Jürgen.
Yes, can you hear me?
Yes, we can hear you.
Yes, quite well. Yes, the topic’s actually run a bit away from where I wanted to go. I wanted to get back to this level — what can the individual do? And basically, no matter how you systematize the whole thing, or view it in terms of complexity, this question basically forces itself upon you — where can I, in order to realize these somewhat secure goals connected with sustainability, in these conscious three pillars, where can I build up the most pressure? And what I mean by that is, is the pressure eventually strong enough, from our side as an individual consumer, as a group of consumers, to move sustainability at that scale, that I consciously move this whole thing of sustainability, namely the interplay of ecology, economy, and social — social justice, which is also part of this sustainability — or is that a dimension, a complexity, that can actually only be enforced through government mandate and political directive? In economics, in theoretical economics, the target of the welfare market — just to add, because it’s also the current political current in our country, represented by the Ministry of Economic Affairs — the target size, the target-shaping figure from sustainability, which is just a means to an end, is post-growth economics. That means this fiction that in the future we’ll get by in this world without needing growth, quantitatively and qualitatively. And I personally put a big question mark behind that, mind you, my personal opinion, and I hope I’m bringing this full circle for you now, in that I say, the question forces itself upon us again — not what do we do, what for do we do it, but do we even want this? And even if we want it, do all other people on this Earth want it too? So that’s a topic that once again has enormous dimensions, from my point of view, but is really still in a phase of figuring things out right now, and essentially, in this phase of figuring things out, it’s important to consider what other people with other viewpoints on this topic think too. Thank you for listening. I unfortunately really have to step away now, but it was exciting, and I thank you all for your contributions. Thank you very much, ciao, take care.
Yes, thank you, thank you so much, and to increase the complexity even further, the question arises with this “do we even want this,” also the aspect of, what effect does that have, viewed globally, if we ask ourselves this question, and what effects does that ultimately have too, if we say, for example, as Germany, or as the EU, yes, we want this. And what effects does that have viewed globally, in inverted commas — on one hand, what leverage does a Germany, or an EU, even have with that? And on the other hand, we already established that various decisions ultimately trigger chain reactions too, whether we look toward competition or similar, and what effects that ultimately brings in the chain reaction too. Sabine, you wanted to add something earlier too.
Yes, I wanted to add something, and also take the younger generation’s position, because I completely agree with Jürgen. Especially in the construction sector, it’s currently a bit of fearmongering, because private residential construction accounts for 50 percent of the pollution. And so everyone now says, we’re heading in that direction. But I’d also note, we currently have a housing shortage, and so on and so forth — we can’t put everyone into a new climate-neutral building where everything’s great. And my question in the discussion round was also aimed at, what do we do with a house from 1940 that a not-so-wealthy couple wants to buy, for example. And the bank told me, parts need to get demolished too. But what does that lead to again? Then there’s a vacant lot, and then a developer will come and build condos there that these same people can’t afford. So from that angle, it’s currently certainly incredibly trendy, and incredibly, the whole finance industry too, what Jürgen just said, under pressure from the Minister of Economic Affairs, in terms of which direction it’s going. We’re currently green — the sustainability charter, those are these 18 points, are currently so hyped and so in, that it’s of course very, very in, and there’s a certain economic pressure to just go along with it. If I, as a bank, don’t go along with it, I’ll probably fall behind. Yasemin, you also asked earlier — I wanted to say this briefly — whether there are price discounts too. Yes, banks today already give partial discounts for new builds with an A+ rating, you get a 0.1% interest discount. Or if you renovate particularly well, or something. So it does go in that direction too, and ultimately the bank’s goal is to have a more sustainable financing portfolio, and play along in this game. Okay, I’ll sign off too, breakfast is being served at my parents’ place.
Yes, wonderful, enjoy your breakfast. Thank you, thank you so much. Marc, you wanted to add something too.
Yes, I have two more points. It’s really important to me, because this argument comes up really, really often, no matter what you’re talking about — I think doing a little bit, as an individual, as Marc, is always better than doing nothing, because even small things have a big effect if everyone does them. And the second thought that came up, when Sabine told her story, is that I’d like to take a look at the church too, whose name I also won’t say. If we — the keyword is still education, questioning and re-examining — I have the feeling that some mechanisms still work the same way. There used to be the selling of indulgences, meaning I could buy myself free of my sins. And now let’s get to the topic of electricity. It’s a lot of fun to have green electricity, but if you then question where the electricity actually comes from, it’s not green — it comes from Norway, Finland, all over, where there’s no power line at all connecting it to us. These companies can then offer “green electricity” — that’s exactly the mechanism Sabine described. It’s a hype. As a consumer, I get a good feeling — if someone asks me, I’m very environmentally conscious, I use green electricity now — but the only green thing about it is the indulgence, namely the certificate that the company pays for so it can put its “green electricity” sticker on. And that’s how it works with a lot, lot of things, and to see through this, or to question it, I’d still like to support it. Are there other ways? It simply requires education, and the art of companies is simply leaving out important details, and that just sells better, if I offer something as green without saying, there’s actually nothing green about it, I basically paid for an indulgence, it’s still not green, but it sells better. If you understand this mechanism, then, as an individual, you can still decide to go along with it anyway, because doing something small is still better than doing nothing. Or you keep searching until you find something you can really stand behind, where you’ve understood what they’re doing and it aligns with your value system.
Yes, wonderful, thank you, thank you so much. And this makes it clear that, on one hand, it’s not just various aspects and factors to consider, but also, on one hand, awareness-raising work, in inverted commas, is important, and the foundation, ultimately, is education again. Because especially against the backdrop of this complexity, it’s necessary not to rely purely on certificates or similar, especially because these kinds of certificates and so on get deployed very deliberately and strategically against the backdrop of a marketing idea too, so to speak, and don’t necessarily always reflect what’s actually behind them, in inverted commas. And we’ll find this in a lot of places, no matter what products, services, and so on, on closer inspection — it’s not just this sustainability topic. We already opened this up with seals and so on in other contexts too — we can question and challenge similar things with certifications and so on in other fields too, not just sustainability. It keeps becoming clear that a seal doesn’t necessarily carry weight, but sometimes just gets used because you can advertise well with it, because a product or service sells better that way, and because it creates a feeling in the consumer or user. And now we’re at a really important point again, with emotions — and here we see again what role emotions play here too, the feelings that get generated. Namely, simply creating the feeling that we’ve done something good. And we’ve had this too, if we think back toward food or something — we discussed this in connection with the “organic” label too, that’s also coupled with certain prerequisites and certificates. On closer inspection, this becomes clear here too — you can’t rely on that either. But that makes it even more difficult, in inverted commas, but also makes clear at the same time that it’s not just the consumer, or the user, who’s allowed to create this awareness, but that these are also topics to be discussed on a political level. However, and here you can make another distinction — in what framework should this actually happen, or what’s the actual task of politics here, in these discussions, in terms of which direction to go — we’ll certainly look at that a bit more, I think that’ll also get picked up or touched on in topics, when in the last week, when we approach the topics again on this political, societal level, from that perspective, you can certainly discuss whether, for example, when regulations get made, is it a difference whether framework conditions get set for companies, for example, or whether it gets discussed on a level like, we should all shower less now, or heat less, or whatever, where it’s more of an appeal to the individual citizen. So worth differentiating here too, and looking at it in a more differentiated way again — what’s actually the task of politics here, and where does it make sense, and where doesn’t it make sense, to try to go into a certain kind of steering, in inverted commas. So we can gladly discuss that in this last week too. I’m curious what different viewpoints, aspects, get discussed there too, against the backdrop of the role and task of politics, for example, at that point. Right, we’ve gathered a few aspects now. Marc, do you have another point?
Yes, I’d like to hook onto that. Yasemin, you just said, what’s the task of politics? And I’d absolutely like to add — what’s the task of Marc, so, of me? We all have a role-model function, and we can all decide whether we hand over responsibility. And I’m back at the topic of teachers too, because I’m with a teacher, and we discuss really, really often how she presents herself. Kids observe everything, and kids notice immediately whether you have a new watch, a new phone, whether you have branded shoes or not. And then it of course also makes sense to think, do I actually need this? Am I using this because the kids see it? And so, if you have the newest phone model every year, or wear all branded clothes, and then say at school, sustainability is important, the environment is important, then it starts again with me having to model what’s important to me, what my values are. And politics has nothing to do with that — it starts much, much smaller, namely with me too.
Yes, wonderful, thank you, thank you so much. And that shows this aspect too, that it’s not just to be looked at from different perspectives, but also from different levels. And it’s not just this, does politics need to go into regulation here, or something, or am I allowed to tackle it myself, in inverted commas — not thinking in either-or, but actually letting both interlock, so to speak, because we often tend to get into these either-or discussions, but we actually have, on one hand, the option to make a contribution through our own behavior, connected to reflection, creating awareness, and so on, and then of course also on a bigger level, whether that’s in a business context, for example, because I’m an entrepreneur myself and have employees and so on, produce products, sell them, and so on, to look again at that point, all the way to looking, on a political level, at what’s actually needed, without going into over-regulation. So those are discussion points we’ve kept opening up, which play a role here too. And then, at the same time, viewed societally, also a kind of rethink, where this education context becomes important again too, as a foundation — awareness-raising, rethinking, and in the sense of self-determination, self-organization, self-efficacy — that awareness, and this knowledge in general, is necessary in a lot of places, so I can not just consciously perceive one thing or another for myself, but also really specifically pitch in, or help steer things, so to speak, at that point. That means we have a lot, lot of different facets, and the marketing topic came up again and again today too, because we’ve talked about all these certifications and so on. But marketing, in inverted commas, isn’t just something negative or something, just because it now gets misused, or used for advertising, to drive up your own sales figures — marketing, communication, always has a really, really special significance, whenever it’s about products, goods, sales, and so on. And that’s not just in a purely economic context, but also in a political context, in a societal context — how it gets prepared in the media, and passed on to the reader, and so on. That’s why we said it’s important to pick up this aspect too. And that’s also the background for why we have a special authors’ breakfast tomorrow, under this umbrella theme Pioneering Spirit with Brain. And I’d like to pick up this aspect again, with recycling, which we had earlier — I already briefly mentioned it before. Especially this recycling topic is, in a lot of places, in inverted commas, you could say a lie. Something like the green dot symbol — so, for years we’ve been sorting our trash, because we believe that this way, part of our waste, like plastic, gets recycled. In fact, unfortunately, if you research this more closely and really look into it, a lot of companies don’t actually go into recycling and pick up recycled products, so to speak, but use new packaging again for their products, produce new packaging, because it’s simply cheaper. And still we have different pictures in our heads, and keep diligently sorting our trash, because someone told us at some point, or made us believe, that we’re doing something good for the environment and future generations this way. So stories and emotions are being played with here, quite deliberately and strategically. That’s why we’re looking at this next, tomorrow with Thomas Pyczak at the authors’ breakfast, to look more closely at, yes, what can actually be achieved with stories, with emotions? Storytelling is the keyword here — namely, “tell me,” how do you convince with storytelling. And here we want to build the bridges under this umbrella of the Pioneering Spirit theme accordingly, and look at what that concretely means, how storytelling can be used not just for companies and so on, but really, thinking completely across various fields, how this power of storytelling can also be used positively in various places, to tell stories, create images with them, and thereby also create a pulling effect in terms of activating the motivation system, and get people moving, to maybe handle certain things differently, and/or start thinking. So I’m really looking forward to tomorrow. You’re all very, very warmly invited to join us tomorrow morning at 8am. It’ll be under the house Bestselling Authors. And we’re looking forward to Thomas — it’ll certainly be a wonderful exchange. You’ll have the option to join in again once we’ve made the introduction, to formulate questions for Thomas, or bring in your own thoughts too. And now that we’ve gotten through the announcement for tomorrow, in inverted commas, and can look forward to it, dear Marc, for today, a highlight or closing sentence — what would you like to share with us to close?
Two things — once again, education, asking and re-examining. Thanks for your contribution on the topic of waste — that’s actually a huge business. But my highlight today is “either-or” — I really, really like that. Just briefly — at some point it became clear to me, I researched this, that for my coffee, well, for the milk, for one liter of milk you need 700 liters of water, and for one kilo of coffee, 5,000 to 14,000 liters — of water, I mean. Whoa, I thought, that’s actually a lot, because water is an important resource we have. That hasn’t led me to stop drinking coffee, but I don’t drink seven to eight cups a day anymore — I enjoy two, fully consciously, and then turn off my coffee machine. That’s at least a small contribution, not total abstinence, but I have a good feeling that I’m at least reducing water consumption a bit.
Yes, wonderful, thank you, thank you so much. A nice example, and if you think about it in that direction, if, through insights like this, in inverted commas, each of us pitches in and tackles things in various places, then we’ll certainly have gained more than if we just walk through the world blindly, in inverted commas, feeling like we have no influence on it anyway, but instead keep making clear to ourselves what contribution we can make personally and individually at this point too. And viewed as a whole, quite a lot comes together from that. Yes, thank you, thank you so much for these wonderful perspectives and various viewpoints. I’m looking forward to tomorrow morning, to our shared authors’ breakfast, and I’m really, really curious what insights we’ll gain together from this room tomorrow too. With that, I wish you a wonderful day, and I’m looking forward to tomorrow. Ciao!
