CLIENT Volkswagen Group Services Consulting
Premiere of the VWGS IMPACT DAY 2023 | Consulting
fors.earth designs and moderates workshops on energy saving for Volkswagen Group Services Consulting
CHALLENGE
Conception and moderation of a two-hour digital workshop on the subject of energy saving
True to the motto "We enable future!", Volkswagen Group Services Consulting, as part of Volkswagen Group Services GmbH, supports the successful transformation of the Volkswagen Group with over 400 experts in various competence centers at nine locations across Europe.
After the #Project1Hour, probably the world's largest climate protection workshop, took place for the second time in April 2022, to which more than 670,000 Volkswagen Group employees from all over the world were invited, the employees of Volkswagen Group Services | Consulting are given space to continue to deal with the topics to which they attribute the greatest potential for impact.
To this end, the first IMPACT DAY was launched in January 2023, a pilot project initiated by employees of Volkswagen Group Services Consulting.
Dr. Hannes Payne, Head of Sustainability Consulting at Volkswagen Group Services | Consulting, emphasizes: “With the format, we have created an important opportunity for sustainable sensitization, in line with the motto: Act responsible. Think sustainable.”
SOLUTION
Development of a workshop format that gave 130 participants space to work out challenges to save energy in the IT sector
Employees of Volkswagen Group Services | Consulting were able to take part in various analogue and digital events on the IMPACT DAY.
The topics ranged from green washing, biodiversity, mobility, a short introduction to non-violent communication, the production of natural cosmetics, stress management, corporate citizenship, diversity to help for and an exchange with Ukrainian refugees.
fors.earth addressed the urgent topic of saving energy in the IT sector:
“Digitization makes almost everything faster, lighter, cheaper. But if we make the wrong things faster, lighter, cheaper, we'll just run our planet faster into a brick wall.”
Stephan Ramesohl, Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy
In the first part of the workshop, the participants were provided with background knowledge on the topic in an entertaining way by means of quiz questions and explanations of the answers.
The second part was dedicated to the development of a challenge for employees to save energy in the IT area.
In the first step, the development of an objective according to the SMART criteria (specific, measurable, achievable, reasonable, time-bound) was presented.
In the second step, the participants were given 15 minutes to develop a challenge in ten teams according to the SMART criteria.
Then each of the ten groups was given 120 seconds to present their idea.
A vote was then taken for the three challenges that, in the eyes of the participants, had the greatest energy-saving potential in the IT sector.
IMPACT
Aha moments and Best Practice
The workshop was able to convey to the participants that digitization is neither immaterial, free nor sustainable per se. Digitization is associated with enormous power consumption, which is a decisive factor in the digital climate balance. In addition, challenges were developed that will continue to be worked on for the third #Project1Hour in April 2023 and whose implementation will help save energy in the area of digitization. The workshop and its results were presented to the management of the Volkswagen Group sustainability department as best practice for the Impact Day concept.
"The workshop gave us not just one, but several results, e. g. also as a basis for the #P1H 2023. The participants found the challenge exciting and are motivated to go into more detail.”
Dr. Michaela Pawliczek, Managing Consultant, VWGS Sustainability Consulting
"I was particularly pleased that we were able to create real aha moments in the first part. For example, most of the participants were not even aware of how much energy undeleted e-mails consume. As soon as such coherences are clear, there are no longer any limits to creativity when developing challenges to save energy.”
Alexandra Namyslowski, expert for sustainability communication at fors.earth
