BACKGROUND
IN THE BEGINNING...
... were questions that, in our experience, many environmentally conscious people are asking themselves today:
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How can I personally make a contribution to climate protection?
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What is the best place to start?
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How could climate protection become easier for everyone?
In order to find an answer to all these questions, the format of change experiments was developed at the HTWG Konstanz University of Applied Sciences in 2014 - inspired by the Vorarlberg projects Probier amol and Mehr mit Weniger . Since 2016, we have been calling this format #climatechallenge.
#CLIMATECHALLENGE...
...is designed to help people dare to make changes and shape their own lives in a more climate-friendly way. To make it easier to get started, #climatechallenge works with 30-day change experiments. The 30-day format lowers the inhibition threshold to actually take action and encourages the development of alternative action routines. The goal is to create an ever-growing community that acts for global climate justice in their local, personal lives.
And this action should explicitly not remain private alone. Anyone who tries to live in a climate-friendly way notices that the structures around us - e.g. the prices for means of transport or the food on offer in the canteen - favor climate-damaging behavior. How can this be? And how can we take action here together?
ACT AS A CONSUMER AND AS A CITIZEN
Through their own #climatechallenge, previous consumption patterns are questioned and an awareness of the climate relevance of their own everyday actions arises. New local alternatives for action and the opportunities they offer are discovered and tested. In addition, the #climatechallenge promotes awareness of the limits of individual action and the importance of appropriate structural conditions. In some cases, it is more difficult, more expensive or more time-consuming to behave in a climate-protective manner. #climatechallenge asks what actually needs to change socially and politically to make it easier for everyone to live in a climate-friendly way - and how each individual can contribute to these structural changes.
With #climatechallenge, we are trying to encourage people to get a positive picture of the active role they can play in the big change needed for climate protection and sustainability.