Green Business Capital. Photo: visitBerlin, Dirk Mathesius
TOMORROW IS NOW How Berlin is preparing for a spin cycle of combined sustainability efforts. TEXT: CORNELIA BRELOWSKI
Ich bin ein Berliner, and my washing machine is second hand. Complete with certificate and warranty, it was safely delivered to my home by one of the many local white-goods repair businesses in the city. A study has shown that yearly, repaired white-goods would actually fill a (bee) line between Berlin and Stuttgart. Just imagine this mass of items instead being discarded and replaced 46 |
Issue 99 |
November 2022
by newer models, year after year. Using repaired or second-hand goods is just one way towards a greener future. Berlin has always been known for its sustainable sharing culture, even before the wall came down and the city in turn reentered capital status. These roots, stemming from decades of an isolated ‘island’ existence
with a lively hand-me-down culture, have nowadays more or less seamlessly merged with a newly realised urgency brought on by climate change and its various scary prognoses in tow. The pandemic years and a war next door have further pushed sustainability goals front and centre. Nowadays, initiatives reach from federal to municipal through to business and consumer levels. The 2022 energy transition congress, initiated by the federally owned dena enterprise, promotes the slogan ‘Alles auf Ziel’ (‘all on