Partner of the 2020 Festival  | Guest contribution by the GIZ

The ökoRAUSCH Festival 2020 is supported by many great cooperation partners. We would like to give them the opportunity to present themselves and their current projects.

NachhaltICH* – What gender equality has to do with sustainability and how you can contribute to the cause

Goal 5 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has set a clear goal: Gender equality should be achieved by 2030. But what does gender equality have to do with sustainability, and hasn’t this already been achieved in Germany? After all, men and women have the same rights. March 8 is International Women’s Day and we have taken this day as an occasion to really think about these questions.

Gender equality is sustainability

The 17 SDGs are holistic because they do not only take into account the ecological perspectives of sustainability, but they recognise that social and economic aspects are just as important for both a sustainable life and society. Furthermore, the SDGs take into consideration that the individual goals influence one another, so the interdependencies must be considered.

When talking about gender equality worldwide, the numbers speak for themselves: there is still a lot to do, not only for the specific targets of SGD 5, but also with regard to other goals. This pertains to everyday life, such as the job market and health; for example, women represent approximately 40 % of agricultural workers, but only around 14 % of landowners are female. Furthermore, around 300,000 women die annually due to complications during pregnancy or childbirth due to lacking quality health care. Women are especially vulnerable during war and crises; for example, three out of four victims of human trafficking are female.

Not a German problem?

Yes it is! Lacking gender equality is not just a problem that other countries have. It is estimated that in Germany, one in three women will experience violence during her lifetime, often in a romantic relationship. This is only an estimate, however, because many women do not press charges.

Even the much discussed “gender pay gap”, the gap between the pay women and men receive, is an issue that is relevant in Germany. That does not necessarily mean that women are paid less for doing the same job. Factors such as part-time jobs are taken into account because women often do not work full-time: they are the ones with the most responsibility in the family. Care work, meaning the care of children or other family members, is unpaid. Women therefore have a smaller income than men and are more financially dependent on their partners than men are. At the same time, they have a double load with care work and wage labour, and their work is valued differently by society; it is equated more with care and emotions than with profitability. A more sustainable world is therefore a world that also supports more equal conditions between genders. For it is only when everyone has the same rights that we can actually live sustainably.

Gender equality – not only for women

Gender equality is often equated with the needs of women and girls. But the rights of members of the LGBTQIA+ community are also taken into consideration under the umbrella term of “gender”. Because gender quality often relates to role models and stereotypes, men also benefit from the discussion about this issue because when female gender roles in society are questioned, the roles of men in society are also questioned.

What can I do?

For the most part, gender equality has been achieved in legal terms and has come a long way, especially in recent decades. Two examples: Until 1997, marital rape was not recognised as such in the eyes of German law, it was considered assault or coercion. Until 1958, a husband was allowed to terminate their working wife’s labor contract without notice – and without the woman’s consent – and he had the exclusive right to manage her wages.

These laws no longer exist, but the corresponding roles have not quite disappeared. They have changed over the years, but they are so deeply engrained in our society that they still influence our thinking and therefore our behaviour. Which is why it is so important to speak about and question the status quo, especially regarding issues such as gender equality, where the problems are not always obvious at first glance. In speaking about it and questioning it, you are directly advocating for a more sustainable society.

The NachhaltICH app offers you specific suggestions regarding this issue. Have you ever talked to friends or family about gender-based discrimination? Do you know if there is a gender equality officer at your school, university or at work? Is there an association in your town that campaigns against genital mutilation? What is the gender pay gap in your company? Gender equality is a sensitive issue that begins in the minds of people, which is why it is of great value to have quality conversations about it: It affects not only our female friends, sisters, mothers and grandmothers, but also our male friends, brothers, fathers and grandfathers.

So what are you waiting for? You can download the app from any app store, Google Play, or directly from www.nachhaltich-app.de and take on exciting challenges!

*A play on words meaning “Sustainability and me”

ökoRAUSCH Festival 2020 | Kick-off

iphiGenia Gender Design Award / iGDN
(international Gender Design Network e.V.)

Mit dem iphiGenia Gender Design Award würdigt das international Gender Design Network e.V. (iGDN) jährlich die besten internationalen gendersensiblen Unternehmen, Initiativen und Produkte. Das Netzwerk möchte in der Branche ein Genderbewusstsein als feste Instanz in allen Gestaltungsprozessen etablieren. Das iGDN engagiert sich in Workshops, Symposien und Vorträgen gegen „Genderblindness“ und für kluges Design ohne Stereotype.

Ina von Rumohr ist Vorstandsmitglied im iGDN, das seinen Sitz in Köln hat. Im Interview erzählt die selbstständige Diplom-Designerin, warum Genderbewusstsein für Nachhaltigkeit sorgt, welche Innovationskraft es im Design entfalten kann und wie man damit die Welt verändern kann.

Wir freuen uns sehr, den iphiGenia Gender Design Award beim ökoRAUSCH Festival 2020 im MAKK in unserer Ausstellung präsentieren zu können!

Wem es jetzt schon unter den Nägeln brennt, mehr über die Arbeit des iGDN herauszufinden, kann sich hier weiterklicken:

iphi-award.org (ab sofort offen für Einreichungen!)
genderdesign.org
https://www.facebook.com/iGenderDesignNetwork/
https://www.instagram.com/int.genderdesignnetwork/
https://twitter.com/genderdesign

ökoRAUSCH Festival 2020 | Kick-off

„We are strong“

Die Schüler*innen der Schule im Süden in Meschenich wissen, was sie wollen. Mit einem Brief wandten Sie sich Anfang Januar an die Bezirksvertretung und schilderten die Zustände der Spielanlagen am Kölnberg und baten um Hilfe. Ihr größter Wunsch, ein Skateplatz. Die Studierenden der ecosign führten im Rahmen von 2 Projekttagen mit den Schüler*innen ein interdisziplinäres Gemeinschaftsprojekt durch. Die Kinder wurden hierdurch zu Gestalter*innen ihres Anliegens und wirkten an der Umsetzung ihres größten Wunsches aktiv mit. Das Projekt wurde durch die Zusammenarbeit von Caritas, Jugendpflege, Bezirksvertretung und Hauverwaltung mit der Schule im Süden und der ecosign realisiert.

Wir freuen uns, dieses wunderbare Projekt in unserer Ausstellung beim ökoRAUSCH Festival 2020 präsentieren zu können!

ökoRAUSCH Festival 2020 | Winner in the category of “students”

Combating Cigarette Litter with User Experience Design

Nicobin started as a cross-media project of ours (Lina Knoche, Lena Pietsch und Susanne Weiskopf) under the direction of Prof. Karen Nennen at the Rheinische Fachhochschule in Cologne. The project’s theme was social design, and we wanted to address the issue of litter in the urban landscape.

Litter in the streets of Cologne is very cost- and personnel-intensive for the city. The 750 employees of the city’s cleaning department clean around 459,700 kilometres of Cologne’s streets and sidewalks annually with its 280 vehicles. Cologne spends over seven million Euro every year to clean up carelessly discarded litter in parks and public spaces. Littering is the word that scientists use to describe deliberate or careless contamination of an area, which is one of the sources of increasing filth in cities. Anyone caught littering is likely to blame it on the lack of garbage cans; in most cases, however, the next waste bin was, at the most, 50 metres away in 80% of the cases. Popular justifications were also “it was just a little bit of garbage” and “everyone does it!”.

In order to better understand the issue of litter ourselves, we participated in an official clean-up in Cologne. On the website nebenan.de we found out about the spring cleaning of Cologne’s Beethoven Park, which was being organised by the local zero waste shop Tante Olga. We and 20 other people started off to the park with garbage bags and gloves. After two hours, all of our bags were full. The large amount of crown caps and cigarettes were very noticeable, many of them having already been stomped deep into the ground or softened by moisture, in the case of the cigarettes.

We followed up the spring cleaning with some research and found out that one single littered cigarette butt can account for the contamination of up to 200 litres of groundwater. And because around 80% of smokers, which is over one billion people world-wide, do not properly discard of their cigarette butts, it poses serious consequences for our environment. Seven out of 10 smokers aren’t even aware of the consequences of their behaviour. And because cigarette butts have long been a part of the urban landscape, they often go completely unnoticed. However, they cause high cleaning costs for the city and irreversible damage to the environment. We realised immediately that a solution for this problem has to be found, which is why we made it the mission of our final MA project.

In order to be successful, user experience designs must involve the actual target group in the development process, from start to finish. In the case of our project, this was a group of smokers that had not been aware of the effects of carelessly discarded cigarette butts. Our research phase included numerous interviews with smokers, the public order office of Cologne and experts, such as Mario Merella from Tobacycle n.e.V., an association that has made it their mission to reduce cigarette butt litter in Cologne and develop a recycling method for cigarettes. The material is treated, the toxins are bound and, together with other components, they are made into a new material.

We evaluated all of the designs and prototypes of our concept with the subjects in our target group. The feedback and usability tests afforded us the knowledge that helped us further develop our prototype and, in the end, build it using CAD. Our making-of video gives people insights into our work. The result of our final project is the fictitious start-up Nicobin. The idea is the production so-called “Kautomaten”, a play on the German words for “chew” (kauen) and “automated machine” (Automat). These machines, located throughout Cologne, allow smokers to trade in their cigarette butts for a piece of chewing gum. The product will be accompanied by an awareness campaign on the environmental impact of cigarette butts. The cooperation with Tobacycle n.e.V. will also ensure that the collected cigarettes will be recycled up to 100%, therefore creating a recycling loop.

We are very excited about the opportunity to present Nicobin to a wider audience at the ökoRAUSCH Festival in 2020!

_______________

In October of 2019, our community voted on who should be placed in the first two exhibition spaces in the MAKK in 2020. From a pool of six projects, three founders and three students could be voted for online. Nicobin won the “students” category.

The voting was supported by the City of Cologne and CREATIVE.NRW.

Sustainable amazement

— a Philosophic Balancing Act

 

Plato and Aristotle once assured us that the origin of philosophy is amazement. The modern era is amazed that anything exists at all. In the recent past we have seen a new idea that is worth being amazed by: sustainability. I would like to go on a mental journey down the path of sustainability. This endeavour assumes a number of possible ways of thinking and there are three reasons that I will start this journey in search of something instead of having a clear goal in mind: Firstly, this interesting, diverse path seems to be more of a tail than an autobahn because it is interesting and varying. Secondly, after twelve years of working together with sustainable designers, this path has proven to be reliable. Thirdly, I hope that there may be a twist and turn on the path that will surprise even the most informed readers. So let’s go!

 

A Patch of Fog — The Middle Finger

Let’s cross the murky patch of fog that is ethics. At first glance, sustainability is a kind of ethical issue because you are supposed to do what you don’t want to. Which isn’t completely wrong. Sustainable behaviour implies that people recognise that principle responsibility comes before one’s personal interests and they say to themselves “You should!”. And that’s just the catch: People really like to say “You should!” to others, but not to themselves and they feel disconnected from external behaviour because they have the right attitude.

In sustainability communication, moral pleas do just the opposite of what they should: they make people go into a defensive mode. Which is no surprise. From the sociological perspective they have found that around 10% of the population is open to moral dictions, which is the same 10% that already leads a sustainable lifestyle. The other 90% reject the message or are indifferent, and this is the part of society whose behavioural changes would really make a difference. There’s a reason that the moral pointer finger and the “digitus impudicus”, the raised middle finger, are direct neighbours.

 

A Forest Path — Woodsman’s Latin

So let’s forget about morals and continue on our path, which now leads us to a forest. We are in Germany so of course this forest is orderly, the forests have been regulated here since the Early Modern Age. Back then, mining collapsed in many parts of the country as there wasn’t enough wood to support and secure the mining tunnels. In consequence, forest regulations were passed in order to manage wood as a scarce resource. It was Hans Carl von Carlowitz in 1713 who coined not only the principle of sustainable economics, but also the word “sustainability” in his work “Sylvicultura oeconomica” when he wrote that it was necessary to employ the greatest arts and sciences in order to manage a forest in such a way that its long-term use could be secured for the development of the country. Here we are dealing with genuine traditional thinking that incorporates the responsibility to maintain what you have so that future generations can benefit from it. The importance of this way of thinking developed around 15,000 years earlier when the Neolithic Demographic Transition began. The basic principle of this transition was that some of the harvest had to be kept as seeds for the following year in order to be able to harvest again. Strictly speaking that is saving resources for the future. A responsible economy would not think in quarters, but in generations.

 

A Clearing — A Crucial Question

We come out of the forest onto a clearing with a cross in the middle. Now it’s time to ask what we think about religion. If sustainability is a moral issue, why can’t it be a religious one, too. Isn’t it the Creator God who compels us to preserve his creation? This is the caring principle that influenced religious thinking in the Erly Modern Era: “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it […]” (Genesis 1:28) from the old testament can be translated in the modern era using the words “rule” and “subject”. But we would get closer to the Hebrew verbs if we also translated the responsibility and care that reverberate in this passage. The religious responsibility for creation would be a great idea if only the world were a bit more devout. But religious commandments have lost their normative power over society over the last few centuries and with the Reformation, they were finally banned to the private sphere. The crucial (sustainably asked) question could then be: Is sustainability more protestant or catholic? In honour of the anniversary of the Reformation we hear the same thing on a daily basis: A person’s beliefs alone make the person justifiable. Or put in a more modern way: The intention and inner attitude count. Martin Luther accused the Catholics of searching for salvation in external works such as the selling of indulgences. Sustainable development has revoked this basic assumption of the Reformation and has redeemed the selling of indulgences. For in sustainability the inner attitude is completely uninteresting, what counts is the corresponding behaviour. What good does it do if I don’t put my money where my mouth is?

There are innumerable examples of this. And the climate and finite resources don’t care why I am using them wisely, as long as I do it. Sustainable lifestyles are refreshingly superficial. It’s really enough to just refrain from doing some specific things, and if I do happen to do them, then I can go through a type of selling of indulgences with myself and compensate for it in another area of life.

 

A Balancing Act – The Art of Living

Now let’s go from the clearing to another path that leads us along a narrow ridge, on both sides there is an abyss. This is a very dangerous path where you have to be extremely careful not to lose control of your balance and not go too far off to one side. For Aristotle, moderation was one of the four cardinal virtues, the sophrosyne. Our effusive lifestyles neglect this virtue of antiquity in a risky way. And with that, all of this rambling has come to a head. Our planet’s natural resources are as finite as the most valuable thing that we have as individuals, namely our life. It is unquestioningly limited, just like the resources on our planet, but in a more specific way because everyone’s lifespan has its own individual limit. And how it ends is always an unknown.
This disturbing mix of the certainty of death and the uncertainty of when it will happen is the horizon of our human existence, “living to die”, whereby death is not just the last event in life, but life is rather planned around it. Heidegger calls that “the worry”, which not only represents being worried, but also caring for one’s own existence and that of our loved ones. Pension schemes, health and life insurance are the socio-economic realisation of this worrying.

 

A High Plateau – A Creative Mission

Even in early philosophy, mortality brought creative consequences. Epicurus postulated a lifestyle of simplicity, moderation and self restraint that was supposed to lead not to intense, but rather to long-lasting enjoyment. People don’t really read Epicurus anymore but his ideas live on in the diet and nutrition apostles of our time and the steady, unstoppable stream of guidebooks on the meaning of life and self-help books. For Montaigne, the limitations of lifespans implied the obligation to carefully structure one’s life. His most important conclusions were that we have to accept death and live everyday as if it were your last. He brought this idea to the point with his essay entitled “That to Philosophise Is to Learne How to Die” where he wrote that one of the greatest benefits is the contempt for death. “It is unclear where death awaits us – so we have to expect it everywhere! Considering death is considering freedom.”
Because our lifespan is a finite resource, we need to more carefully plan life because this brings meaning to it that hasn’t been a given since the enlightenment. This time is an exception: what is true on the subjective-biographical level holds true on the global level as well. The limitation of our planet’s resources is at the same time the contract to use them with moderation. Shortage leads to design. There is no path that leads away from this high plateau, there’s nowhere else to go. We as current world citizens are obliged to stay here, this is our place. This is a difficult responsibility, yes. But no other generation has had the insights into possible futures and mankind has never had a greater and more wonderful responsibility than we do today. Let us use this chance to do something great!

Urbane art meets sustainable development

The developmental NGO one world network NRW (in German: Eine Welt Netz NRW) has launched the urban art campaign “Weltbaustellen NRW” (in English: global construction site NRW) to help shape and discuss the Agenda 2030 and its Sustainable Development Goals. International murals are setting the example of change that must start with us.

Visible Changes

The Agenda 2030 and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which were resolved by the United Nations on 25 September 2015, have set the course for a future in which we can no longer live beyond the possibilities of our planet. It includes the responsibilities of all nation-states to sustainably combat poverty and to promote education and gender equality. Furthermore, it includes enforcing fair international trade and minimising the negative impacts of consumption on humans, animals and the environment. The Agenda became effective as of 1 January 2016 and Germany must develop and evolve!

If we really want to reach the goals of global sustainable development, we have to make changes in all life aspects. Policy, economy and society must change in order to sustainably address urgent issues such as poverty, the need to seek refuge and the lack of equality. Which is why the one world network NRW launched the “Weltbaustellen NRW” campaign in December 2015.

Together with artists from the Global South and Global North, we will be designing murals in 2016 and 2017 that will be painted in a total of 16 cities in NRW. The artists’ murals will deal with aspects of the Sustainable Development Goals, making them visible to the public. At the same time, they will be changing the cityscape, giving impetus for change.

The murals that have been realised so far this year are unique and fascinating. Some of them illustrate an issue in a drastic manner, such as the mural in Bochum that deals with plastic and consumption. Others, such as the mural in Bedburg illustrating the issue of renewable energy, have chosen a more subtle motif in a fusion of humans and the future. Some murals show elements of a utopia and a world in danger, as does the mural on the “Hexenhaus”, or witch’s house, in Dinslaken. Each mural is an expression of what personally concerns the respective local artist(s) regarding the topic of sustainability.

In Minden, the artists involved called on other international artists to send in their own sketches and ideas about the Sustainable Development Goals – and 21 artists followed their call. The mural turned out to be a collage of all of these ideas and concepts, framed by an intergenerational dialogue.

The picture of impact

We have initiated a lot of dialogue with these murals, primarily about what is actually being done with the respective wall. People walk past and ask themselves: What is going on, what is this all about? Neighbours are curious and want to talk to the artists. For us it’s about dialogue regarding the mural, but also it’s important to include people’s curiosity in discussions about how we want to live in the future.

The design of the murals is accompanied by many events which include everything ranging from podium discussions on sustainability, artistic and cultural activities, to film workshops or pub quizzes on the Agenda 2030. In order to organise these great programmes, we count on many partners and volunteers in the respective cities.

At the psychiatric hospital in Düsseldorf, for example, we had a graffiti-jam with 20 artists who worked on a construction site fence. During a workshop, the patients had the opportunity to work with an artists to create their own motif that they actually got to spray on the fence during the jam. Direct participation is especially interesting because the dialogue between the artists and the local people help the process to become more complete.

Which is why a part of our campaign involves a specific programme for schools in which students work on the Agenda 2030 issues using urban art. Students and artists co-produced murals in many schools in NRW.

Stop complaining!

We use comprehensive events to bring people together with the different “Weltbaustellen”. At the kick-off event in April 2016 in Cologne, the art director of the campaign, Klaus Klinger of Farbfieber e.V., summed it up really well: Over the course of the campaign we hope as many people as possible will join us in our cause and also participate in the process themselves!

And so far, it’s been working: At our event “Stop complaining! Let’s eat fair!” at the Eigelstein Gate in Cologne, we got such great feedback that we will be hosting other community events and activities such as organic fair trade dinners. The idea of coming together in a mix of political statement, urban art and dinner to discuss what food actually means to us consistently carries on the ideas of the campaign.

What we have planned for NRW

This year we have installed “Weltbaustellen” in Bedburg, Bochum, Dinslaken, Düsseldorf, Cologne, Minden, Mühlheim and Remscheid. The murals make people want to come back and take in their size, time and again, to find they keep discovering new details they hadn’t seen the first time. The murals are here to stay – and at least as many murals will be added to the list in 2017. We have already planned projects in Bielefeld, Dortmund, Hagen, Herne, Essen and Münster.

We appreciate each and every person who wants to get involved in the projects or who is simply interested in the Sustainable Development Goals and what the future on our planet should look like. Those of you who would like to stay informed about our projects can either follow us on Facebook or check out our website to see what we are currently working on.

Making it Happen – The Campaign Sponsors

Along with all of the volunteers that are help us out with our work, we would like to mention our supporters, for they have helped make this project possible:
The patron of the “Weltbaustellen NRW” campaign is Franz-Josef Lersch-Mense, Minister for Government Affairs, Europa and the Media in NRW and is Head of the State Chancellery of North Rhine-Westphalia. The campaign is funded by the Foundation for Environment and Development of NRW, Engagement Global on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and Misereor. Campaign sponsors are Lemonaid and the natural electricity provider Naturstrom out of Düsseldorf.

The One World Network NRW

The one world network NRW is the campaign coordinator of “Weltbaustellen”. The one world network NRW association is the umbrella organisation of many developmental organisations and individuals in NRW. The one world network NRW is an independent and self-organised association that has been supporting civil society’s one world engagement in North Rhine-Westphalia since 1991. Together with its members, the one world network NRW advocates for fair international trade and global environmental protection, for open-minded policies and cultural diversity, and for human rights and peaceful conflict resolution.