Establishment and sponsors
The foundation Forum für Verantwortung established the educational initiative Encouraging Sustainability in 2006 in collaboration with the ASKO EUROPA-STIFTUNG and the European Academy of Otzenhausen. Over the course of ten years, Encouraging Sustainability has developed into an educational project with an international focus with the goal of motivating people to deal responsibly with the Earth system on the basis of a broad, public, science-based discourse.
In March, 2005, the foundation Forum für Verantwortung hosted a colloquium on the topic “The future of the Earth—How much more can our planet take?” In the words of Klaus Wiegandt, founder and CEO of the foundation as well as founder of the initiative Encouraging Sustainability: “In the course of the lectures and conversations, it became abundantly clear to the participants that many of our planet’s problems will catch up with us relentlessly if we are not intentionally and without delay guided by the notion of sustainable development.”
“Come together to create Europe.” This has been the guiding theme of the European Academy of Otzenhausen since its establishment in 1954. Its work is devoted to the fundamental questions of European integration—research and education—as well as German-French collaboration and international politics from a European perspective.
As a co-sponsor of the initiative Encouraging Sustainability, it is concerned with the future of the Earth: “Our commitment to and our responsibility for a policy of sustainability will be the yardstick for measuring the success of European policy,” emphasizes Arno Krause, longstanding president of the Assembly of Partners.
ASKO EUROPA-STIFTUNG dedicates its work to a Europe that faces up to the political, social, and ecological challenges of globalization and takes on responsibility in and for the world. For this reason, it is a co-sponsor of the
initiative Encouraging Sustainability in order to encourage the discourse about sustainable development in society.