EDM Sustainable Business 2022

SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS 2022
The IdeaList
1
2
2
4
65
Committed, convinced and confident:
people we call idealists, whose
achievements - small and large - stand
out for a more sustainable world. They have
inspired others, founded movements or
protected regions. Some of them have been
seen and heard, others less so. But all of
these idealists have proven themselves to be
crusaders for sustainability and are thus part
of our list, the “IdeaList.”
The trailblazer: Yvon Chouinard
Yvon Chouinard’s career as a founder of Chouinard
Equipment, Black Diamond and Patagonia
is common knowledge.
Over his time in the
business, Patagonia has
donated more than $105
million to environmental
causes. It has topped
the list among apparel
brands with the best
reputation on the Axios
Harris Poll rankings.
Chouinard has steered
Patagonia to the purpose-driven
company
it is today by being a
very early inventor of disruptive marketing (like
urging consumers on Black Friday, 2011, to “Don’t
buy this jacket,” trying to trigger a reflection process
that encourages thoughtful consumption.
After decades of his company blazing the trail
and driving many things forward, he says: “There
is no such thing as sustainability. The best we
can do is cause the least amount of harm.”
Chouinard believes stock market valuations are
“absurd,” investing in shares is “buying blue sky”
– and modern-day capitalism is destroying the
planet. “I’d like to see an end to public corporations
because we’re not going to revolutionize
them, we’re not going to change them,” Chouinard
once told the Guardian.
The preservationist: John Muir
Born in 1838, the co-founder of the Sierra Club
was one of the first activists that saw the need
for legal protection of lands as the only way to
preserve wildlife and nature. He helped to install
the Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks. The
picture shows Muir (on
the right) with Theodore
Roosevelt on
Glacier Point in Yosemite
National Park (Photo:
public domain). Unlike
the conservationists of
his day, who wanted
to protect the land for
human use above all
else, Muir was a preservationist:
his goal was to
leave nature as untouched
as possible.
The humanist: Jürgen Altmann
During a sabbatical in Ladakh, Jürgen Altmann,
owner of the Aroma Kaffeebar in Munich, learned
that nearly 90 percent of the population suffers
from eye damage and eye diseases due to
extreme UV radiation.
In 2009, he founded
Shades of Love, a project
that collects new or used
sunglasses from businesses
and consumers and
distributes them to people
in high-altitude regions. He
has since built logistics and
partnerships to ensure distribution
through various
means to the target areas.
An NGO, Brillen Weltweit, is helping with the testing,
preparation and storage for Shades of Love.
On-site, there is a network of professional organizations
that finally distribute the sunglasses (for
example the shipment of 70,000 sunglasses in
Fall 2021) to the remote mountain regions..
Key cooperation partners include:
• The Tibetan Health Care Center in Choglamsar/Ladakh,
a partner organization of the Department
of Health in Dharamsala, a charity
of the Dalai Lama.
• Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology in Kathmandu,
a part of the Nepal Eye Program.
Today, around 50,000 pairs of glasses are waiting
in the German warehouse to be shipped. Companies
such as Apollo Optics, Edel Optics, Julbo and
Funk are among the regular providers of unused
glasses, but private individuals also donate used
20