Lower Saxony Alliance for Sustainability – Count us in!

Klasmann-Deilmann has been commended for doing business sustainably by the ‘Lower Saxony Alliance for Sustainability’.

Klasmann-Deilmann has belonged to the ‘Lower Saxony Alliance for Sustainability’ for just under 10 years now. A network of businesses, NGOs and policymakers seeking to move forward sustainable development within the federal state, the Alliance comes together in the form of a major gathering at least once a year.

This time round, Lower Saxony’s Environment Minister Olaf Lies welcomed 120 participants from the worlds of business and politics, as well as community stakeholders, to the Alliance’s annual event. At Hannover’s ‘Haus der Wirtschaft’ (House of Commerce and Industry), they discussed current challenges and the possibilities of knowledge management.

Professor Christoph Igel of the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) in Berlin highlighted the changing expectations concerning knowledge retention in the private sector. It will, he said, be a tremendous challenge to use new technological solutions so that companies can profit by harnessing data streams between man and machine. A crucial factor in this is consciously embracing ‘new logics’ in digitisation, as is a redistribution of roles between people and machines. Igel added that he hoped small and medium-sized enterprises, too, would explore issues surrounding the use and incorporation of artificial intelligence. It became clear in a subsequent podium discussion, however, that personal knowledge sharing is, and will remain, the method most likely to be successful.

At this year’s event, and for the first time, 11 companies received a special designation commending them for doing business sustainably. Under the banner Wir sind dabei (‘Count us in’), the Alliance honoured the efforts of firms that are committed to being sustainable in their own operations and that implement specific measures within all three key aspects of sustainability – commercial, environmental and social. Representatives from the Alliance presented stylish door plates to the companies being recognised. Klasmann-Deilmann had applied for this award back in April.