“For me, wealth does­n’t mean hoard­ing mon­ey, but the abil­i­ty to make a dif­fer­ence. This can be finan­cial, but also non-mate­r­i­al. Wealthy peo­ple should use their finan­cial resources to pro­mote inno­v­a­tive and sus­tain­able projects that have a pos­i­tive long-term impact.”

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Dr. Eckart von Hirschhausen in an inter­view.

First pub­lished by change — the mag­a­zine of the Ber­tels­mann Stiftung on July 05, 2024

What does it mean to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for our own health and that of our envi­ron­ment? change spoke to Dr. Eckart von Hirschhausen about the impor­tance of social com­mit­ment and sus­tain­able invest­ments as well as his vision of a future worth liv­ing.

For Dr. Eckart von Hirschhausen, human health and cli­mate pro­tec­tion are inex­tri­ca­bly linked: The doc­tor and sci­ence jour­nal­ist is com­mit­ted to pro­tect­ing plan­e­tary health with his foun­da­tion “Healthy Earth — Healthy Peo­ple”. change met him at an event for NextGen Impact Investors, orga­nized by the Bun­desini­tia­tive Impact Invest­ing e. V. and the Ber­tels­mann Stiftung. In the inter­view, he talks about why we urgent­ly need to act on cli­mate pro­tec­tion and gives tips on how we can all con­tribute to a bet­ter future.

Dr. von Hirschhausen, how can we pro­tect our per­son­al health and the health of the plan­et in every­day life?

“Health does­n’t start with a pill, an oper­a­tion or an MRI. Health begins with the air we breathe, the water we drink, the plants we can eat and tol­er­a­ble tem­per­a­tures. And all of these things are in great dan­ger in our world right now. That’s why we should focus on our eco­log­i­cal foot­print, our hand­print and our heart­print. One small step, for exam­ple, is to cycle instead of dri­ving or take the train instead of the plane. Get­ting involved in NGOs and foun­da­tions can also make a big dif­fer­ence. It’s also impor­tant to talk about the things that wor­ry us and cel­e­brate those who are look­ing for solu­tions.”

“The most impor­tant thing an indi­vid­ual can do now is not to remain alone! That’s why every­one should think when they wake up in the morn­ing: ‘Who can I move today who can move more than I can?

- Dr. Eckart von Hirschhausen, doc­tor, sci­ence jour­nal­ist and speak­er

You talk about foot­prints, hand­prints and heart­prints. Can you explain what you mean by this in a lit­tle more detail?

“The foot­print refers to our neg­a­tive impact on the envi­ron­ment, i.e. the resources we con­sume and the emis­sions we cause. The hand­print, on the oth­er hand, rep­re­sents the pos­i­tive impact of our actions, such as sup­port­ing sus­tain­able projects. The heart print sym­bol­izes our emo­tion­al and social con­tri­bu­tion: how we inspire oth­ers by talk­ing about our con­cerns and visions and cel­e­brat­ing peo­ple who find solu­tions to the chal­lenges of our time. All three aspects are impor­tant in shap­ing a sus­tain­able and just future.”

In which area do you see the great­est need for action?

“We need to move away from fos­sil fuels and towards renew­able ener­gies and final­ly intro­duce a CO2 brake. It is unac­cept­able that the dam­age caused by a tonne of CO2 is still high­er than the price that com­pa­nies pay for it on the mar­ket. Den­mark is a pos­i­tive exam­ple. There, it is sud­den­ly worth­while for com­pa­nies to invest sus­tain­ably because the price of CO2 has been raised. We urgent­ly need a real­i­ty check in which we ask our­selves what the cli­mate cri­sis is already cost­ing us and what it will cost us if we car­ry on as before. Then it will very quick­ly become clear that the invest­ments we would have to make now to secure peo­ple’s liveli­hoods are less than the price we will pay for the con­se­quences if we do noth­ing.”

Do wealthy peo­ple have a spe­cial respon­si­bil­i­ty in our soci­ety?

“For me, wealth does­n’t mean hoard­ing mon­ey, but the abil­i­ty to make a dif­fer­ence. This can be finan­cial, but also non-mate­r­i­al. Wealthy peo­ple should use their finan­cial resources to sup­port inno­v­a­tive and sus­tain­able projects that have a pos­i­tive long-term impact. After all, what is all that mon­ey worth if we are liv­ing on a plan­et that is no longer worth liv­ing on? Ger­many is one of the rich­est coun­tries in the world and has the resources to play a pio­neer­ing role in cli­mate pro­tec­tion. In the pub­lic debate, the safe route is often cho­sen, but the younger gen­er­a­tion in par­tic­u­lar has real­ized that the safest way to destroy the sta­tus quo is to hold on to it. That’s why it’s impor­tant not just to wait for polit­i­cal mea­sures, but to take action our­selves.”

“The younger gen­er­a­tion in par­tic­u­lar has real­ized that the surest way to destroy the sta­tus quo is to hold on to it. That’s why it’s impor­tant not just to wait for polit­i­cal mea­sures, but to take action our­selves.”

- Dr. Eckart von Hirschhausen, doc­tor, sci­ence jour­nal­ist and speak­er

Do you have any tips on how peo­ple can con­tribute to a more sus­tain­able approach to the cli­mate and envi­ron­ment with­out spend­ing a lot of mon­ey?

“The most impor­tant thing an indi­vid­ual can do right now is not to stay alone! That’s why every­one should think when they wake up in the morn­ing: “Who can I move today who can move more than I can?” One of the rea­sons why I set up the “Healthy Earth — Healthy Peo­ple” foun­da­tion was the real­iza­tion that it is dif­fi­cult to save the world on a vol­un­tary basis as long as oth­ers are destroy­ing it full-time. Every­one can play their part in cre­at­ing a shared vision of a future worth liv­ing for all by get­ting involved with­in their means and sup­port­ing sus­tain­able projects, for exam­ple in asso­ci­a­tions, church­es, ini­tia­tives or foun­da­tions.”

What kind of world would you like to live in ten years from now?

“My top­ic as a doc­tor is health, and I expe­ri­ence a lot of uncer­tain­ty and fear, both among sci­en­tists and among peo­ple who are involved. The ques­tion is what still needs to hap­pen before human­i­ty final­ly wakes up. I hope that in ten years’ time we will be the first cli­mate-neu­tral con­ti­nent in Europe. That would be the great­est suc­cess sto­ry we have writ­ten since the peace after the Sec­ond World War. Oth­er regions of the world are look­ing to us and will only fol­low if we suc­ceed. I want to be able to look back in ten years’ time and say that I did every­thing in my pow­er to change things for the bet­ter. We all have the chance to make a dif­fer­ence now and we should take it.”

Thank you very much for the inter­view!

Would you like to find out more about how we can shape pos­i­tive change togeth­er? With the “Sus­tain­able Social Mar­ket Econ­o­my” pro­gram, the Ber­tels­mann Stiftung is com­mit­ted to rec­on­cil­ing eco­nom­ic suc­cess and social par­tic­i­pa­tion with eco­log­i­cal respon­si­bil­i­ty. Take a look!