Impressions from the EPA International Environmental Youth Symposium 2015

At the end of our trip we finally approached the EPA Conference, the International Environmental Youth Symposium 2015, the highlight of our journey.  

The first day we learned about what the EPA is doing on climate change and we got the possibility to exchange and share our opinions and our experiences with other students from all over America and Brazil. Various lectures and presentations were at the focus on the second day. This enabled us to get an insight into topics we didn’t know that detailed before, such as climate change and safety or climate change linked to diseases. To sum up in my opinion it can be said that there are already great ideas and projects to face the problem of climate change and its consequences. However, it was obvious that it’s not enough to talk about solutions and aims, it’s just the first step. As a next step we need to become active and put our ideas into practice because there is plenty of work waiting for us.

Like Prof. Dr Heck formulated it: “We need to stop being clever but start to be wise.” It was inspiring to meet so many people who were as passionate and interested in the topic of environmental stewardship and sustainability as we are and I am grateful that I could be a part of this conference.

#LL

Attending the Youth Symposium has been a great experience that enabled me to exchange my academic knowledge with different culturally coined academic views and interdisciplinary approaches. I was amazed by the ideas and solutions to the challenges posed by climate change and environmental pollution presented by American students. The approaches and conducted research in the area were impressive and very diverse. Exchanging ideas in conversations with some of the students was inspiring and a true learning experience as I got new insights into different viewpoints and approaches. Another thing that struck me was the manner in which the symposium was conducted. Instead of the symposium consisting of one stiff presentation after another the symposium was filled with lively discussions and forms of presentations. Moreover, the way in which social media was used in order to have an ecxtended reach was quite different from what I have experienced before (official speakers took selfies with the participants, who were also encouraged to generally take selfies, and posted them on social media such as twitter and facebook). Furthermore, the U.S. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, gave an outstanding speech.

What I appreciated most in her speech was that she pointed out that the challenges posed by climate change as well as possible solutions neither follow human borders nor elections. Instead, international cooperation and commitment is required in order to further sustainability. A viewpoint I can very much agree on and find of utmost importance with regards to COP 21.

#NC

Meeting with the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC)

Created in 1947 with several predecessors, the ARC is a governmentally funded regional planning agency for the City of Atlanta as well as its ten surrounding counties. Major fields of work include public transport (MARTA), water resource management (Tri-State Water Wars), innovating the region’s economy and workforce, land use and communal livability. The ARC collaborates with local governments, businesses, non-profit organizations and individual citizens.

On September 29th the Delegates met with the ARC to discuss their Green Communities Program, a voluntary certification program for the ten counties to adopt practices that reduce their impact on the environment. Local governments can earn points by choosing from a list of ten categories to implement practices which promote efficiency in energy use, including transportation and water treatment, power generation from renewables and green building practices (largely LEED and Energy Star measures).

Furthermore points can be collected by enforcing recycling and waste reduction, increasing the amount of trees and green spaces and providing education and community outreach. Measures taken then translate into a bronze, silver, gold or platinum certification for the community. If necessary and desired the ARC also provides communities with technical support and training to meet their goals. As of 2014, there have been 18 communities awarded with the Green Communities certification.

In the meeting with Green Communities principal planner Crystal Jackson the Delegates addressed some of the most pressing systemic problems of metropolitan Atlanta. Due to Atlanta’s lack of a comprehensive public transport system (MARTA’s subway system provides only four lines running in two directions) Atlantans are facing heavy traffic, particularly on and within Interstate 285 (the perimeter) which encircles the City of Atlanta and several other counties.

Consequently, the inner city’s infrastructure is predominantly laid out for automobiles, with multi-lane avenues and countless large parking grounds, making the city less walkable, less cycling friendly and causing respiratory problems for some of its dwellers. The expansion of MARTA faces opposition by some constituencies, also due to racial stereotypes, which is why it is hard to move along in this direction. Though the ARC cannot pass laws or impose taxation to combat these problems, it can bring together the region’s leaders to address them and help plan Atlanta’s future.

Our special thanks go out to Crystal Jackson, who gave us an interesting presentation on the Green Communities Program, devoted her time for our questions, and presented us with insightful information folders.

For More information on the ARC’s regional involvement and the Green Communities Initiative visit:http://www.atlantaregional.com/environment/green-communities

#NiSy

Reception in Honor of the 25th Anniversary of Germany's Unification

On Wednesday 30th September, three days before the acutal event, our delegation had the chance to celebrate the Day of German Unity. We spent the night at Hilton Garden Inn Hotel in Downtown Atlanta, celebrating German Unity much more than we would have in Germany itself. We were delighted by consul Detlev Rünger giving an inspiring speech about German history during the past 25 years. But his speech was not been the only highlight that night. We not only had the chance to meet Mr Rünger once again after our Meet and Greet at the Consulate General in the beginning of our trip, we also got to see some other people again that we had met along our trip through  Atlanta and Savannah. Lea and I were pleased to spend some time with wonderful Jairo Garcia who we met at the City of Atlanta earlier that week. Having Pretzels, Weißwurst (typical Bavarian veal sausage) and Sauerkraut, we learned a lot more about the city of Atlanta. In addition, we discussed some cultural aspects of international differences in adopting ecological criteria in one's way of life. We talked about culture, moving and working abroad in general. It’s been a pleasure to us!

The reception of the German Unity is an event that I will keep in my memory for a long time. The hotel, its penthouse and rooftop terrace with the wonderful views it provides, and the great conversations we had, make the night as special as it was, hitting the whole trip’s peak.

#KJ

Design Meets Sustainability - A Visit to SCAD

One of the delegation’s most insightful encounters was with the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). The college is one of the nation’s leading design schools and offers an undergraduate minor, an MA as well as an MFA in Design for Sustainability. We met with Design for Sustainability professor Scott Boylston to learn more about SCADs graduate program in Design for Sustainability.

At SCAD sustainable design is based on a “triple bottom line” which considers environmental, social and economic health and thus aims to make design holistic and equitable. The idea is to think of design as a multi-faceted discipline which recognizes the scope of existing challenges and applies systems thinking and design strategy to come up with solutions that not only meet technological standards but also fit into individual social contexts. As a result, SCAD defines technical innovation, perceptual innovation and social innovation as means with which environmental, economic and social wellbeing can be achieved. Perceptual innovation addresses aspects like legitimizing alternatives, debunking product-based wellbeing and information visualization while social innovation focuses on creating participatory and inclusive designs as well as empowering localized assets.

 SCAD’s approach to sustainable design has already materialized in many interesting projects including innovative practices to manage organic waste in urban spaces, encouraging sustainable consumer behavior through an outdoor gear rental mobile app and building a greenhouse from reclaimed materials to provide fresh produce to residents of a food desert and function as a center for vocational training.

The delegation went on to meet with the Director of External Realtions Erina Tandy, who gave us a guided tour of the SCAD campuses. SCAD students have access to a multitude of facilities and equipment, including project workshops, a photo studio, a fully equipped carpentry, a 3D printing studio and a paint shop. Our campus tour was concluded by a visit to the SCAD Museum of Art which currently hosts Rashaad Newsome’s exhibition “Orders of Chivalry”.


To learn more about SCAD’s Design for Sustainability programs visit: http://www.scad.edu/academics/programs/design-sustainability

Thank you Scott Boylston and Erina Tandy for an inspiring presentation and a delightful guided tour.

Visiting Epsten Group - A comparative look at sustainable building practices

On September 30^th, the delegation went to visit the offices of the Epsten Group, a multidisciplinary architectural firm based in Atlanta, which focuses on commissioning and offering consulting advice on sustainable building design.

Even before being introduced to the company's work, the group's offices made their mission clear: Being located in a previously economically deprived area just outside of downtown Atlanta, the group chose to remodel an old workshop and reuse old building materials in order to reduce waste and achieve LEED platinum certification for their office, which opened in 2011. As the old roof could not handle the weight of a typical installation of PV panels, the company ingeniously decided to go with 5kW of flexible and lightweight solar panels that could directly be attached to the roof without the need of a heavy installation rack.

Dagmar Epsten herself, who founded the Group in 1991, gave us a presentation on her lifelong mission to make commercial buildings more sustainable. A German expat, she moved to the US after her diploma in order to use her architectural abilities in Atlanta and the Southeast. Since then, the group has been commissioning new buildings as well as retrofitting existing ones. Being involved from early-on in the planning process allows the group to take a holistic approach to planning, not only designing a sustainable building on paper, but also making sure that the building structure is actually built and used accordingly. Furthermore, Epsten Group has been particular active in evaluating and granting LEED certification to commercial building owners, a market that shows strong growth in the US. Being able to certify a buildings sustainable merits has become a competitive advantage in assuring real estate developers and future owners that a building is cheap to maintain and manage. This, in turn, can help achieve a higher selling price on the market. In Germany, where state-set buildings standards on efficiency are stricter, LEED has not taken up as much for commercial development, but particularly international real estate companies like to also rely on LEED certification in Germany, China and around the world, as it has become a universal selling point.

As LEED is primarily catering to commercial housing, we also talked with Epsten Group employees on the different approaches that are being taking towards building sustainable residential homes on both sides of the Atlantic. Here, a number of differences emerged: Germans move less often from one place to another and have a stronger culture of being personally involved in the planning of residential housing. Therefore, they often personally ensure that their house is energy efficient and overall sustainable, which also saves them cost of operation in the long-term. In the United States on the other hand, housing is often developed by professional developers who are in a competition to offer the lowest price per developed square-feet - a competition, that can sometime go at the expense of sustainability and energy-efficiency concerns. This is further accelerated by low energy prices, which allow efficiency concerns to take the backseat in comparison to other considerations. Furthermore, differences in building usage were discussed that have strong effects on the overall sustainability of buildings: Whereas Germans like to be in control of their flat or house and open windows regularly to let in fresh air (which is more doable in Germany, where temperatures are more moderate than in Atlanta), Americans prefer managed environments with included ventilation and air-conditioning that also take indoor air quality in account.

In consequence, developing sustainable buildings needs more than just using the latest energy-efficient technology, it also means taking the future end-users behaviour and building cultures into account. Our visit at Epsten Group gave us a great impression on the intercontinental differences and communalities in building development. Dagmar Epsten herself, being a translator between these different cultures, was the perfect host to explain those different approaches to us. Thank you for the fascinating insights!

Visit at the Water Hub - Emory University

At the Emory University we had the opportunity to see and learn about a water recycling system, the WaterHub, which is the first system of its kind in the US. The special thing about it is that it cleans waste water right on the campus and thus is able to provide nearly 40% of Emory’s total campus water needs. Thus Emory’s draw of water from Atlanta’s municipal water supply will reduce by up to 146 million gallons of water annually.

This shows another example which demonstrates that economic benefit and sustainable behavior fit together perfectly and complements one another. From my perspective a remarkable point is also the fact that the whole cleaning is done mainly through natural processes, for example cleaning the water through the roots of various plants. This shows us again that we don’t necessarily need to develop completely new techniques but rather to reclaim natural original methods - basically let nature doing its job. Water is becoming rapidly more and more of an alarming issue or already is one, as you can see f. ex. in California.

In my opinion water is even more of an issue than switching to renewable energies because we currently still have several possibilities to produce energy but we do not have an alternative to water. So it’s even more important to find ways to recycle it, like The WaterHub is doing it already.

#LL

“Education is for improving the lives of others and for leaving your community and world better than you found it”

Comment on Visit to Spelman

 

The quotation by Marian Wright Edelman, the founder and president of the Childrens Defense Fund, is to be found on one of the halls at Spelman College in Atlanta. Emphasizing the immense impact of education, not only on the individual but on communal life, this sign caught my attention.

As we toured through some of the more than 20 buildings of Spelman College campus, my fascination for this college’s spirit grew more and more. Paying attention to the Students wellness, both physical and mental, Spelman College replenished my understanding of US-American colleges. The quotations from powerful and successful women who gained appreciation from civil society for their economical, ethical, political, social or spiritual engagement over the decades seem to be echoing from the walls, attempting to encourage the current female Spelman students to speak out their mind and to work hard to succeed. Biblical sayings emphasize the beliefs in God and the strength of religion. They seem to remind the female students of their value and their important work in means of encouragement and empowerment.

The presentation of Spelman College’s successes in sustainability and the subsequent discussion with Spelman students brought up another aspect of climate change: The intersection between social justice and climate change, which is called climate justice. Climate justice is a term used to describe the ethical aspect of the consequences of global warming, taking equality, human and collective rights into consideration.

I was really impressed by the tour given by Art Frazier, the director of Facilities Management at Spelman College in three ways: Firstly, Spelman college is extremly engaged in sustainable initiatives, leading them to accomplish decreases in energy and water consumption. Secondly, I was delighted by the Spelman spirit being spread by all the motivational sayings and I wish my own university would adapt some of these habits being shown at Spelman. And thirdly, the educational approach that Spelman College has taken in terms of sustainability. From my point of view, education is that guiding principle that we have to focus on, when it comes to making human-beings more sensible for and to integrate sustainable issues into their repertory of behavioral patterns, I do see a huge potential in educating people because as Marian Wright Edelman said, Education is the key to finally leave the “world better than you found it”. #KJ