German President Joachim Gauck honored the new recipients of the German Environmental Prize from the German Federal Environmental Foundation (Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt, DBU) at the end of October: “All three prizewinners show us that we can do many things differently, even when allegedly iron-clad practical restraints apply. We have strategic options: politically, economically, socially, technologically. We can influence future developments.” From the hands of Gauck and DBU Board Chairperson Rita Schwarzelühr-Sutter, the economist and energy efficiency expert Professor Emeritus Dr. Peter Hennicke (Wuppertal) and the scientist and founder of the company UNISENSOR Sensor Systems, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Gunther Krieg (Karlsruhe) accepted the award which, with its accompanying 500,000 euro monetary grant, is the most highly-endowed independent environmental prize in Europe. The DBU Prize of Honor, previously awarded only three times, was also presented to Hubert Weinzierl (Wiesenfelden) for his lifelong commitment to, and work in, nature conservation.
