One online platform, seven own events, 21 "well practice" examples, more than 30 active event participations, more than 70 entries on a self-designed "nachhaltig.digital” map, about 1,600 people who were reached at events and a media range of around 134 million people – these is the success of the platform “nachhaltig.digital”. Recently, the results were presented at its own annual congress on March 20, 2019 in Osnabrück.
“nachhaltig.digital” is a competence platform for sustainability and digitization of the middle class of the German Working Group for Environmentally Conscious Management (B.A.U.M., Bundesdeutscher Arbeitskreis für umweltbewusstes Management) in Hamburg and the DBU. Together with “nachhaltig.digital” the DBU has been looking for digital solutions for sustainable development for middle class since early 2018.
"Digitalization is not without substance," emphasized B.A.U.M. board member Martin Oldeland at the opening of the congress and referred to energy consumption and resource use. "Digital transformation needs sustainability - online and offline," says Oldeland. DBU-secretary general Alexander Bonde emphasized: "Digitalisation offers great potential for transforming environmental challenges such as climate change into market opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises. Recently, the University of Osnabrück completed a DBU-funded digitization project. The results suggest a connection of competitiveness with digitization as well as sustainability of the companies.”
The annual congress, presented by Tina Teucher, focused on the three main topics: "artificial intelligence", "measurability" and "new work". The issues were intensively discussed by keynote speakers and in workshops by around 160 participants. Besides continuing education and leading by example by supervisors, flat hierarchies, flexibility and creativity were identified as important topics in the field of "new work". Digital technologies offer new opportunities for measuring the level of sustainability in companies and thus resulting in an increase of sustainability in companies. These were the results according to discussions about measurability. During the artificial intelligence workshop, participants requested a value system for sustainability with guidelines for the use of artificial intelligence.
Finally, project coordinator Carl-Ernst Müller invited people to work in expert circles on the issues discussed. He drew a positive conclusion from the first year of “nachhaltig.digital”: "There is demand from the middle class. Companies are invited to participate in the platform and in the new expert groups."
