Andreas Diegeler

Abstract:

The climate change that we are driving with our hunger for energy, mobility, consumption and global networking will primarily harm ourselves and our future generations. Economic prosperity and global resource consumption have so far gone hand in hand - our planet is already no longer sufficient for our needs, we are living "on credit". How can we make the leap forward to a resource-conserving circular economy? On the one hand, globalization and worldwide networking create prosperity and jobs; on the other, they create enormous competitive pressure in production and social standards. To survive in this competition, we need to drive key technologies forward. As parent institute to quite a number of different entities, the Fraunhofer ISC is privileged to combine first-rate expertise in materials science with long-standing experience in materials processing, application and analysis. The Institute focuses on affordable health care and regenerative therapies, on resource and energy efficiency, and on sustainability, emphasizing the use of regrowing and economically friendly raw materials, the avoidance of critical materials as well as on smart and sustainable processing techniques. The ISC is one of the leading European R&D centers for material-based research and development in the fields of energy, environment and health with innovative material solutions and technologies for sustainable products and essential contributions to solving the major global issues and challenges of the future. Our talk will go through several approaches of Fraunhofer ISC to go forward saving our blue planet.