Impact Gstaad
First Impact Circle Event
at The Alpina Gstaad
On Tuesday afternoon, the first Impact Circle Event took place at The Alpina Gstaad under the motto "Healthy Planet for Healthy People". The sustainability initiative Impact Gstaad offered a platform for sustainability visionaries to present their solutions for tackling the world's most pressing problems to around 140 invited guests. Speeches by top-class speakers rounded off the event.
Right at the beginning of the first Impact Circle Event on Tuesday afternoon at The Alpina Gstaad Hotel, ETH Professor and Impact Board Member Dr. Reto Knutti used computer simulations to illustrate the problems that the global community and in particular the Swiss population will have to deal with in the coming years. For example, the Aletsch glacier will have completely disappeared by 2100 if we do not succeed in slowing down climate change.
An afternoon dedicated to solutions
With its Impact Circle events, the sustainability initiative Impact Gstaad wants to give a voice to visionaries who are tackling the world's most pressing problems with innovation and technology. "We want to connect people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world," says Impact Gstaad co-founder Andreas Wandfluh. The Impact Circle event impressively demonstrated that there are truly enough of them. More than 20 project leaders presented their solutions for a more sustainable future in short talks to the 140 invited guests under the motto "Healthy Planet for Healthy People". From a visionary farm that combines agriculture, tourism and natural healing (votre-cercledevie.ch), to artificial coral reefs (rrreefs.com) and an electric all-terrain multi-purpose vehicle (peakevolution.ch), to concrete that can bind CO2 (neustark.com) - the innovative power seems to know no bounds. "It is incredibly inspiring how all these people develop ideas and create projects that give hope for the future," says Andreas Wandfluh.
Impact Investing: A promising way out of the crisis
In order to find successful solutions against the looming climate catastrophe, the business community must be involved and incentives for investors must be created. All those present at The Alpina Gstaad on Tuesday afternoon agreed on this. Philanthropy in particular was also discussed controversially. "Philanthropy is, soberly considered, an investment with a return of minus 100 per cent," one speaker put it in a nutshell. "People have to be enthusiastic about convincing sustainable projects or products and the stories behind them. Probably very few people drive a Tesla because they want to protect the climate, but because it is simply an impressive car," said Reto Knutti. The guests at the Impact Circle event were given plenty of opportunities to invest in inspiring projects. And so Andreas Wandfluh is also optimistic about the future. "Impact Gstaad stands for progress. If we manage to link innovation, politics and the world of finance, we will have a measurable impact on the sustainable development of our society with our platform."
Impact Circle Event
Graphic Recording
by André Sandmann
Our graphic recorder André Sandmann from Pikka captured the whole Impact Circle Event for us on a huge poster. We have now prepared the map interactively and integrated the videos of the speeches directly into the corresponding graphic.
Please note that the map is optimised for desktop PCs. We have prepared a 360-degree panorama version for smartphones.
