One of the most recognized awards supporting a new approach to culture and empowerment. Monika Griefahn is Co-Chair as well as jury member; an experience which uniquely qualifies her to have an international overview of how cultural innovation is practiced. Since 1985 she has been committed to the Foundation. As part of her committment she organizes research trips to meet potential laureates, for example in Turkey, Afghanistan and China.
A precursor to the official founding of this NGO was organization of the Cradle to Cradle festival in Berlin in 2011 over many months. C2C-inspired companies presented themselves and various events were organized including speeches, presentations, and concerts as well as fashion shows.
The C2C innovation concept aims to design and optimise products which are beneficial without waste. All materials go back into biological or technical circles and can be reused at the same quality. Production processes are optimized in a healthy and positive way.
The Cradle to Cradle – Wiege zur Wiege association supports key elements of the Cradle to Cradle principles via educational work and public relations.
Our work for AIDA Cruises began 2012 when Monika Griefahn took over as director for environment and society. Our task is to implement holistic quality in the company. We offer solutions for exhaust gas treatment and evaluate all parts of the company for how sustainable they are and might become.
We gave the Autostadt Wolfsburg (a subsidiary company of Volkswagen) advice on its campaign "Gut essen" ("eat well"). We also worked with selected representatives of the Autostadt staff to develop ideas for a roadmap leading to holistic quality.
Since 2012 Monika Griefahn is guest lecturer at the Technical University Hamburg-Harburg. She offers a seminar on "Environmental policies and Sustainability". The majority of students study engineering with different focusses. Seminars like ours "look beyond your own nose". We are convinced that engineers, who become future developers of sustainable products,have to be able to judge things from the viewpoint of politicians or NGOs.
For the Foreign Ministry (via the Inmedio Institute for mediation, consultancy, development in Berlin) we supported political education for Egyptian women. They are encouraged to apply for politics. In a seminar in Cairo we introduced ideas for an election campaign to a group of committed women.
Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Berlin, Paris, Washington D.C.