The recipient of the Hans-Carl-von-Carlowitz Sustainability Award 2021, Dr. Vandana Shiva, visited TU Dresden on 27 June 2022 on her way to the award ceremony in Chemnitz. Together with guests of the Saxon Carl-von-Carlowitz-Gesellschaft e.V. she came to learn more about the university's activities in the sustainability field and to exchange insights with the local actors.

Dr. Vandana Shiva has already been awarded many times for her commitment to environmental protection and women's rights. In addition to receiving the Hans-Carl-von-Carlowitz Sustainability Prize 2021, she is also the recipient of the Right Livelihood Award 1993. Furthermore, Vandana Shiva is a founding member of the World Future Council and a member of the International Organization for a Participatory Society. In her work, she combines gender justice with ecology and criticism of globalization.

The event in the festive hall of the Rectorate started after a welcome and the opportunity for lunch with a contribution by Prof. Dr. Uta Berger. In her function as Scientific Director of the Centre for International Postgraduate Studies for Environmental Management (CIPSEM), Prof. Berger explained how young decision-makers from the Global South learn from and with each other in continuing education courses to contribute even more to a sustainability transition in their positions.

Afterward, Dr. Dieter Füsslein, Chairman of the Saxon Hans-Carl-von-Carlowitz Society e.V. for the Promotion of Sustainability, explained how Hans Carl von Carlowitz first formulated the principles of sustainability as early as the beginning of the 18th century. The triangle of sustainability he described, consisting of ecological balance, economic security, and social justice, is still valid today.

In her kick-start speech, Dr. Vandana Shiva emphasized that all our efforts to achieve more sustainability are built on the thoughts and actions of many individuals and societies. Prof. Dr. Edeltraud Günther continued to present the objective and some of the activities of PRISMA, the Center for Sustainability Assessment and Policy at TU Dresden. Finally, the holder of the newly established Hans Carl von Carlowitz Junior Professorship for Sustainability Assessment and Policy at the Faculty of Economics, JProf. Dr. Samanthi Dijkstra-Silva, reported on her plan to specifically address in her research on sustainability assessment what inhibits or encourages individuals to contribute to more sustainability in their personal and professional contexts.

In her research, Dr. Vandana Shiva has also dealt intensively with sustainable agriculture, considering the situation in her home country India. In the subsequent discussion with the guests, among them the current participants of the CIPSEM courses as well as members of UNU-FLORES, Dr. Shiva once again emphasized the role of individual actors in the effort for more sustainability. For example, smallholder farmers, who cultivate land with low environmental costs while at the same time protecting biodiversity, have collectively great and large-scale significance for the transformation of society and need appropriate political representation. Here she sees one of the great democratic challenges of our time.

Dr. Vandana Shiva's comments on the increasing insecurity in our time were particularly remarkable. She sees uncertainty as an inseparable part of life, always representing an opportunity and potentially more freedom. Accepting this uncertainty as something natural increases personal resilience in the face of politically or economically instrumentalized fear. She encouraged the young decision-makers in the room to find new and creative ways to combine self-care with the care for others and our planet.

© CIPSEM/Viktor Smolinski