Sustainability as a focus at the VIR Innovation Days
The VIR Online Innovation Days took place between June 25 – 26 in Berlin and the subject of sustainability in the tourism sector was a major focus of the event. Outdooractive’s CEO, Hartmut Wimmer, took part as a speaker and delivered a keynote speech on the subject of ‘Sustainability through digitization in destinations’. This article looks back to a couple of insights.
Sustainability does not simply mean reducing CO2 and avoiding plastic, but rather that a raft of different issues will need to be entirely reconsidered in the future. Digitization will play an essential role.
A notable lecture that was relevant to this was given by Prof. Dr. Michael Braungart, the co-inventor of the so-called ‘Cradle to Cradle Principle’ that was conceptualized in the late 1990s. This argument is based on the notion of creating an economy that is cyclical. Products are considered ‘cradle-to-cradle products’ if they can either be returned to biological cycles as nutrients or rotated in perpetuity as ‘technical nutrients’. Thus it is a question of the concept of ‘eco-effectiveness’, coined by the inventors themselves. Since 2010 we have seen the introduction of ‘C2C certification’, aimed at evaluating the sustainability of a product based on a set of criteria.
The VIR Online Innovation Days were a very revealing event with the subject of sustainability being extensively examined and discussed. We certainly took a lot away from it and aim to play a major role in sustainability through digitization.