Environmental policy and social transformation

We are currently facing major environmental challenges: climate change, biodiversity loss, environmental pollution – the global environmental problems are so extensive that we must move beyond individual causes and solutions and consider the bigger picture.

Comprehensive transformation processes are called for in various areas of society, including energy, transport and nutrition. We use the term “transformation” when changes in technology, infrastructure, consumption, culture and politics are interlinked and mutually reinforcing.

Transformation results in social needs, such as the need for mobility, being met in ways that differ fundamentally from those previously employed. For example, the motor car did not simply introduce us to a new technology. It gave rise to completely new branches of industry, from automobile production and maintenance and repair businesses to the fuel industry; it led to the creation of car-oriented infrastructure (motorways, car parks, traffic lights, fuel stations), to a host of new rules ranging from road traffic regulations to tax concessions for company cars, to changes in mobility behaviour and to new slogans such as Freie Fahrt für freie Bürger – a call for “freedom from speed limits for free citizens”.