4. October 2022
Julia Kriegel

VAST FORWARD SDG-Challenge as part of the German Action Days on Sustainability

Once again, between September 20th and 26th VAST FORWARD went into “Challenge-Mode”. With our VAST GREEN SDG Challenge, we participated in the “Deutsche Aktionstage Nachhaltigkeit” (German Sustainability Action Days) and the “Europäische Nachhaltigkeitwoche” (European Sustainability Week).

On the occasion of the United Nations World Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), the German Council for Sustainable Development launched the Deutsche Aktionstage Nachhaltigkeit (DAN) in 2012 – this year, the campaign is  celebrating its 10th birthday!

We also participated with our DEV DAY within the framework of this great action (VAST DEV DAY), which already took place a week before the challenge, where we received different impulses on the topic of sustainability from various sectors and companies. And last week we organized an SDG Challenge for the whole VAST FORWARD team.

But from the beginning, what were the SDGs again?

With the 2030 Agenda, the global community has set itself 17 ambitious goals for sustainable development – the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Five core messages precede the 17 SDGs as principles: People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace and Partnership – also called the “5 P’s”. They illustrate the important connections between the 17 goals (Source: https://www.bmz.de/de/agenda-2030).

During the past few days, we intensively focused on some of these 17 goals in our Challenge. But why exactly?

The SDGs are the scientific basis and frame of reference for our sustainability strategy and our VAST GREEN sustainability initiative.

With our initiative, we are committed to developing a more sustainable, responsible way of working together, both strategically as a company and in our personal everyday lives. Our motto: We Do Not Just Compensate.

For us as a 100% remote digital service provider, VAST GREEN is an important lever for the whole team to shape our future together – for us, regular challenges mean learning and exchange, a variety of topics, participation and simply fun!

In the context of the SDGs, we looked at a wide range of topics and shared our ideas with the team and our social media community.

Our Challenge,
7 Days for Sustainability

On Day 1 of our SDG Challenge, we tackled SDG 9 “Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure” by looking at the topic of “Green Tech”, i.e. the sustainable use of software, hardware and data in general. A subject that is elementary to our digital sustainability concept. The task was simple: Keeping the cameras off in all meetings! After all, a video call requires approximately four times more data than an audio call. By turning off the cameras, we were able to save 48 g of CO2 as a team in just one day. At first glance, this may not sound like much, but to put it in perspective, a car with a diesel engine consumes an average of 162 g of CO2 for one kilometer of driving. As the saying goes, many pennies make a dollar!

On day 2, we dealt with the circular economy and SDG 12 “Sustainable Consumption and Production”. With regard to our diverse digital devices, we asked ourselves how we as a company can contribute to counteracting the 50 million tons of e-waste generated worldwide every year (Source: Circularity Gap Report 2021 – Insights – Circle Economy).

We faced SDG 15 “Life on Land” on International Car Free Day by leaving our cars in the garage on Day 3. After all, the total transportation sector accounts for about one fifth of EU emissions (CO₂-Emissionen von Pkw: Zahlen und Fakten (Infografik) | Aktuelles | Europäisches Parlament). An interesting learning  was how green our cities would look if we replaced existing parking spaces & cars through green spaces:  https://www.instagram.com/jankamensky/

On day 4, the topic of mindfulness and the question of how we can further integrate the topic of sustainability into our personal everyday life fitted in perfectly. A possible answer is first of all “get out into nature and breathe deeply”: because the majority of our team lives in the city and, like many people living in cities, we are increasingly losing our connection to nature (Globale Bevölkerung in Stadt und Land | Statista). And so we focused on SDG 11 “Sustainable Cities and Communities” and learned that living in the city not only brings numerous cultural offerings and restaurants, but also increased air pollution and constant noise, which can lead to health problems and stress. Accordingly, it is important to consciously take time in everyday life to explore the parks and forests around one’s home and find a personal place of tranquility and rest.

The Challenge also continued over the weekend. On Day 5, we looked at SDG 2 “No Hunger”, where we shared our numerous Sustainable Fridays and Lunch & Learn on the topic of “Food”. After all, food production and consumption is responsible for up to 30% of all negative environmental impacts in Germany! And even more tragic: during the journey “from field to plate” one third of all food is wasted. At the same time, many millions of people worldwide suffer from hunger (Ein Drittel der Lebensmittel wird verschwendet | Umweltbundesamt

The topic offers many approaches to become active yourself, let yourself be inspired how we can feed ourselves in a more future-friendly way:

Food for Everyone:
This way

Vertical Farming:
This way

Food Waste | Part 1:
This way

Food Waste | Part 2:
This way

Slow Food:
This way

L&L Veganismus:
https://vast-green.com/veganuary/

"The action days were a lot of fun. You are always reminded of sustainable living through little snippets. This has already enabled me to change many things in my everyday life." Vanessa Bittroff

“Power Off” was the challenge on Day 6 for SDG 7 “Affordable and Clean Energy” & SDG 14 “Life Underwater” – which we unfortunately couldn’t share with you due to a small glitch. The theme was energy, and the electricity we all use in our personal and professional lives – and also the aquatic fauna! How does that fit together? One example: with the energy concept of their sailing catamaran VAST, Maren and Matthias can live and work completely energy self-sufficient for more than 6 months a year – and even make their own drinking water! Solar panels replace the need for a generator and thus the use of fossil fuels. And in doing so, they also protect the underwater habitat around them. Click here to watch the video!

And then it was already the last day of our VAST FORWARD-SDG-Challenge!

As a grand finale, we introduced one of the most important SDGs on Day 7: SDG 17 “Partnerships to Achieve the Goals.” After all, on our journey for VAST GREEN so far, we have learned that we can only address the climate crisis by working collaboratively on new ideas and by changing old habits together. Our journey towards sustainability has therefore been collaborative since the beginning with partners from business and science!

hese include the Bundesverband Nachhaltige Wirtschaft e.V., the Umweltpartnerschaft Hamburg, the Charta der Vielfalt and the AD Girls Club, and our ESG Reporting & Management Software Partner Spenoki/Code Gaia, and of course you! Because what would the SDG Challenge have been without your support! We hope you were able to take a lot away from the past few days like we did, and we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

You missed the challenge? Then you can find it on our Instagram channel in the Story Highlights. And if you want to participate in our challenges in the future or want to organize a joint challenge, please contact us via: green@vast-forward.com.