Go Green or Die Trying – Innovative sustainability concepts for a green future: Greentech Festival Berlin

This week the Greentech Festival took place at the old airport in Berlin Tegel – a trade fair that focuses its eyes entirely on green technologies of the future. Evernine was there and heard from over 200 exhibitors (including Christian Lindner, Billie Eilish and Nico Rosberg as host) about ways to tackle the climate crisis with green technologies.

It is hot – very hot, in fact, when we reach the old airport in Berlin Tegel for the Greentech Festival. Some would call it ironic that it is precisely at this festival of Green Change that climate change shows itself from its most beautiful side.

 

After the first strains of ticket redemption were over ( it was still very hot!), right at the entrance we encountered the stage of KOA – Berlin’s first career festival especially for women. Inspiring personalities such as Diana zur Löwen, Verena Pausder or Lunia Hara gave here their will to renunciation and change – we listened to some of these discussions spellbound before continuing – because just across the street is the “Smart.City.Plaza” – which the leading European consulting, planning and project management company Drees & Sommer operates together with “Urban Beta” in addition to their “Urban Sustainibilty Hub”.

A forum for lectures, workshops and discussions around the topics of sustainable building & general energy saving.

 

At Urban Beta we stop for a moment – a modular principle where prefabricated wooden elements can be coupled and combined with each other through nodes – especially in a fast-changing, mobile world such forward-thinking, sustainable & socially inclusive design for temporary quarters is of course very interesting. At the configurator upstairs (again, it was very hot!) you can build your own, so-called Betahood.

Evernine at the Greentech Festival in Berlin (image source: Evernine Group)

Future vehicles

Past a speedy ABB Formula E runabout, which (unfortunately) was not allowed to be driven across the tarmac on this day, we continue to a corner where various car manufacturers such as Skoda, Audi and also BMW (& Mini) present themselves and their electric vehicles.

Audi was also among the exhibitors at the Greentech Festival (image source: Andreas Rentz/Getty Images for Greentech Festival)

On the way to the inner area, you encounter a few more delicious food stalls, but you tend not to get hungry in this weather, so (for us) reaching for a Bionade had to suffice.

Inside, NexAero presented something that had not been seen before (at least by NexAero). The company’s first hydrogen-powered flying car. After the initial hustle and bustle due to Christian Lindner’s tour had died down, there is space again to take in further highlights:

In the hangar is a vehicle from EDAG, an automotive supplier from Wiesbaden and an Evernine customer – it looks as if it has been taken from a film set in the year 3000 – sci-fi alert! But what does this vehicle have to do with green technology? Simply put: In addition to simple transport, it can recognize, collect and also sort waste.

The list of innovations is long

On and on we could go with this list of inspiring incidents: Lufthansa’s Greentech Hub, which is looking for startups that can help make flying greener; Shell’s electric charging station from Ubitricity, which is integrated into a lantern; or Mattel’s “Barbie Loves the Ocean” doll collection, which is made of 90% ocean plastic.

 

All of these are interesting technologies that can make the world a little bit better – but can they be enough to stop climate change?

Our take aways:

 

There is a fine line between real sustainability and greenwashing, which is admittedly also a much-used buzzword. Even the world’s major corporations and CEOs are aware of this. That’s why some keynote speeches are still a bit vague, to be honest.

But to pick up on the Greentech Festival’s motto: #togetherwechange!

#togetherwechange - the motto of this year's Greentech Festival (image source: Andreas Rentz/Getty Images for Greentech Festival)

Especially in the areas of IT and digital marketing, there are already numerous opportunities to make processes even more sustainable and green. And if these are consistently used and implemented, a real change towards more sustainability is possible. We at Evernine rely on these trends and innovations, which we want to and will integrate even better into our daily work – together with our partners and customers.

Image source: Andreas Rentz/Getty Images for Greentech Festival