“Industry 4.0”, “blockchain”, “data mining” and “augmented reality”: these buzzwords stand for a trend that is accelerating ever faster and changing ever more areas of life: digitalization. "How do we manage to use the opportunities of digitalization for positive ecological change, but still keep an eye on the risks? For the DBU, it is all about how digital production, business, and information processes can be applied to management in such a way that the natural basics of life are preserved, energy is used sparingly, and the ecological stress limits of the planet are not exceeded", as DBU Secretary General Alexander Bonde describes the challenges arising from the new technologies. In cooperation with the Bundesdeutscher Arbeitskreis für Umweltbewusstes Management, B.A.U.M., Hamburg, the DBU has therefore launched the project nachhaltig.digital, a competence platform that aims to support small and medium-sized companies and their business partners, in particular in integrating aspects of sustainability into digital change and innovation processes.
"Above all, digitalization demands from the DBU's core target group of small and medium-sized companies the development of their capacity to make fundamental changes. At the same time, small and medium-sized enterprises in particular are part of the solution to the challenges ahead, as the driving force behind innovations in the environmental sector in Germany", says Bonde. "Now, the task of the competence platform will be to develop digitalization- and sustainability strategies for small and medium-sized companies together, and to harness their potential", emphasizes DBU expert Dr.-Ing. Jörg Lefèvre, one of the initiators of the project. nachhaltig.digital is intended as a place for ideas, products, solutions, inspiration and discussion - both digital and analog, online and offline, virtual and on-site - especially for small and medium-sized businesses in Germany and their business partners.
Toward this end, the project combines the online presence https://nachhaltig.digital with event formats such as expert discussions, company working groups, specialist congresses, and networking events for the direct exchange of experience. These networking and exchange platforms will be operated by a project- and communications office with five employees in two locations, Hamburg and Osnabrück. The interdisciplinary team will collect, discuss, evaluate, and prioritize digitalization trends. "Approaches, ideas, and model projects will be researched in a specific field (for example, artificial intelligence) and linked to opportunities and risks for sustainability - for example, resource efficiency. Together with partners from science and practitioners, we want to network ideas, develop concrete approaches to solutions across industry boundaries, and disseminate proven methods", explains project coordinator Carl-Ernst Müller. nachhaltig.digital can draw on data and findings from numerous DBU research- and business projects, as well as events and contacts of both supporting institutions. Partners from both practice and science/academia, such as the Umweltkompetenzzentrum Rhein-Neckar, UKOM of Heidelberg, are already supporting the project, and the corporate initiative "Charta digitale Vernetzung" of Berlin, is the "2018 Strategic Partner".
New partners are expressly welcome in the project, in order to search for answers together. The official project kick-off on May 15, 2018 in the Deutsche Telekom building in Bonn offers an initial opportunity to do so. Further information and registration: https://nachhaltig.digital/auftakt.
