Sustainability in Professional Life
Sustainability is a growing concern in today’s society, and it has become a critical part of our professional lives. With climate change and environmental degradation becoming increasingly apparent, people are more aware of their actions and the impact they have on the world.
Sustainability is not just a buzzword or a trend, it is a way of life. It means ensuring that we use our resources efficiently and responsibly, minimize waste, and reduce our carbon footprint. In the workplace, sustainability means making conscious decisions that minimize the impact of our operations on the environment and society.
Organizations that embrace sustainability as a part of their professional life are more likely to be successful in the long run. Not only do they reduce their environmental impact, but they also attract customers who are looking for eco-friendly products and services. Moreover, a company’s sustainable practices often reflect positively on its brand image, reputation, and employee morale.
As individuals, we can also incorporate sustainability into our professional lives by making small changes. For example, we can reduce paper usage, turn off lights and equipment when not in use, and use public transportation or carpooling to reduce our carbon footprint.
In conclusion, sustainability is not just an individual responsibility but also a corporate one. It is up to us to embrace sustainability as a part of our professional lives and make conscious decisions that minimize our impact on the environment and society. By doing so, we can create a better and more sustainable future for ourselves and future generations.
With courage for the first comment:
We are now at the point where we have a functional website with an appropriate content management system and can now start to produce content and work with this site. Our design guide makes designing easier!
Writing here still feels a little strange, but we will certainly become more experienced at these tasks over time.
Today’s attempt shows an image with the project logo that we designed at a working session during our kick-off meeting on 2 February 2023 in Lemgo. Our website will be based on this design. We are delighted with this first major milestone – and would like to thank our Estonian ERASMUS+ design interns who have supported us in this endeavour.
What does this have to do with sustainability?
As a free, user-friendly platform, WordPress offers a wide range of free plugins and themes, making it a resource-efficient solution that allows us to present and maintain our content professionally and without high development costs. By using our design guide, we have the opportunity to design it in a consistent and well thought-out way. This saves us time and resources in the long term. And since we, as an ERASMUS+ project, want to maintain and make our content available beyond the end of the project, this combination of WordPress and design guide allows us to easily customise the website.
Some thoughts on the start of the project
Our project started on the last day of 2022. Of course, nobody was working then, but we were certainly all thinking about what the coming year would bring.
At G2VET, all the partners were looking forward to the start of the project. We already knew each other from the preparatory online meetings and knew that many exciting challenges awaited us. January 2023 was then filled with “sustainable” reading, as the focus was on approaching the EU GreenCOMP – and of course preparing for the kick-off meeting in Paderborn, Germany.
The conference took place on 1 and 2 February 2023 in Paderborn (and Lemgo) / Germany and was the highlight of the project launch.
The conference took place on 1 February and 2 February 2023 in Paderborn (and Lemgo) / Germany and was the highlight of the project launch.
All partners got to know each other personally and developed a shared commitment to the project. They discussed the understanding of sustainability and sustainability expertise, the common approach and agreed on the first concrete and practical steps. This resulted in a working structure for the first few months to create the conditions for forming a community in their educational institutions that focusses on sustainability.
Day 1 took place at the Stiftung Bildung & Handwerk in Paderborn and, after the welcoming address by the Board of the Stiftung Bildung & Handwerk, included presentations by the partners in which they introduced their organisations and their approach to the topic of sustainability as well as their expectations of the project. It was used to provide an overview of project management, agree on how to achieve the common goals, discuss work packages and responsibilities and talk about communication tools, agreements on mutual learning and project documentation in the blog.
The Project Team during the Kick-off-Conference in Paderborn, welcomed by Aloys Buschkühl, Board of Directors of Stiftung Bildung & Handwerk (Germany)
Day 2 took place at Innovation-Spin in Lemgo and was focussed on the content-related discussion on the topic of “sustainability”. The InnovationSPIN in Lemgo provided the perfect backdrop for this: it is a pioneering and sustainable place of learning, designed as an open-space building that creates a space for dialogue and collaborative work. The architecture of the Innovation Spin encouraged dialogue on structural and technical details such as façade design, underfloor heating, noise protection, smart controls and flexible workstations that contribute to sustainability. A substantive discussion on the topic of sustainability and what is meant by it, but also what each individual can do, revealed experiences to very different degrees. On this basis, the partners decided to study GreenComp EU in greater depth and to analyse the concept of sustainability.
In a working session, the partners discussed drafts of the project design and agreed on a logo, on the basis of which the design guide would be developed in the coming weeks.
The conference brought the working team of project partners together and they defined the working methods, roles and dissemination strategies for the first phase of the project.
Working Session with the Project Team during the Kick-off-Meeting on February 02nd, 2023 in the Innovation Spin in Lemgo (Germany)