The soil scientist Ingrid Kögel-Knabner and the businessman Reinhard Schneider, the detergent and cosmetics making, have been awarded with the German environmental award in 2019.
They were “a pacemaker in the protection of the environment, the future solutions for the enormous environmental challenges of the present,” says Alexander Bonde, Secretary-General of the German Federal environmental Foundation (DBU), the two prize-winners.
With 500,000 euros in prize money the award is the highest endowed environmental award in Europe. Will be presented by the Federal President of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Mannheim.
Role of soils for the climate
Kögel-Knabner is one of the “most renowned and influential soil scientists in the world,” says Bonde. Their discoveries, such as climate-damaging carbon in the soil is bound, are “a milestone” in your research. This results in a completely new understanding of a result, how much carbon which soils can store, – stated in the explanatory statement.
Soil Scientist Professor Ingrid Kögel-Knabner
Soils are a habitat for plants, animals, insects, important bacteria and other organisms. Their conservation is important for the entire ecological cycle. Soils are the largest CO2 storage of the earth, and on the other you freely give through the decomposition of plant greenhouse gases. In consequence of climate change in coming decades, to increased soil erosion, it is part of the DBU.
This means, on the one hand, loss of habitat, on the other hand, agricultural production area. It is estimated that in Europe more than ten percent of the area of the European Union, are moderately affected to severe soil erosion.
The research of K ÷ gel-Knabner give “answers to the question, what is the soil carbon storage is sustainably possible, to counteract the climate change,” said Bonde more.
The sustainable entrepreneur
“A pioneer of the circular economy” is called the DBU, the entrepreneur Reinhard Schneider, whose company, cleaning produces in the medium, and the like. From his 1986 based company Werner & Mertz, various brands have emerged, the most famous should be “frog”.
With numerous initiatives for the protection of the environment he was entering new territory. Cutter is excellent for use in its business consistently for its packaging Altplastik to print them with health-friendly labels and instead of the controversial palm oil from tropical regions, its Laundry detergents from domestic raw materials such as flax, hemp or olive produce.
“A pioneer of the circular economy,” the businessman for detergent Reinhard Schneider
In Germany alone, some 630,000 tons of chemicals from the washing, each year, and cleaning agents from private households to the wastewater system. Many of the detergent is not or only partially biodegradable, can not be completely filtered out by sewage treatment plants, and accumulate in the long term in the environment, where organisms can be harmful.
Schneider have consistently made environmental products in a mass-market majority, so the BDU.
The price this year to 27. Times awarded. Be awarded for exemplary performance and special solutions that contribute to the preservation and protection of the environment, or in the future, will contribute.
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Entrepreneurs in the climate-strike
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