Green Supply ChainAn Environmental Approach to Today’s Industry

European Students of Industrial Engineering and ManagementIssue 44 2013/1 | ISSN 0874-5242 | Price 0 Euro | www.estiem.org

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EditorialPresident’s SpeechIntroduction to ESTIEMOur MissionOur Core ValuesESTIEM Projects & Committees

CAREERSTILL - Green logistics in silver-orange livery

Carl Zeiss - Creaminess of chocolate can be measuredINSIDE ESTIEM

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EXPLORE EUROPE

EVENTS

Green Supply Chain - Converting Supply Chains for the Environment

Green Supply Chain - A win-win RelationshipNew Management Challenges for Supply Chains are Green

From Green Supply Chain to Blue EconomyTowards Sustainable Supply Chains: Profitable, Green and

Socially ResponsibleEnvironmentally Friendly Supply Chains

Evaluating Supply Chain Sustainability

Board 2012 interviewing Board 2013On the road to successWhat it feels like to be a TIMES Semi-Final Project Leader...20 years of VisionDo you think you see the world in 3D? Life–changing experience in ESTIEMBusiness BoosterKMC transferring “the knowledge” to the Local GroupsIs ESTIEM as green as it looks?Life of virtual HeroesCRC - Get Lucky, Find a Partner!What shall we do with the Language Programme Initiative?CRC Coordination Meeting The long road we have gonePR-CR School: Third Time’s the CharmMy “First Event” ExperienceWith engines fired up and ready to go active! Europe3D NorwayIndustry needs versus EducationE-learning: so what?

What a difference 10 Miles make!ERASMUS in BudapestTo Erasmus? Or not to Erasmus?Mini-journal of an unforgettable experienceBeing an ERASMUS student was my dream

INTRODUCTION

Dear ESTIEMers,

Our lovely organisation is growing and expanding continuously. What numbers did we manage to reach on the current level that we are stand-ing on? 23 years of voluntary activities; having 68 Local Groups in 27 countries; 9 Projects, 8 Committees and 5 Initiatives. One of them is celebrating 20 years ofexistence.

We are able to stand and balance perfectly on the branches generated by our whole system. We designed our own detailed maps of the roads that we were about to take. We did all of this, using the values that we created throughout time and choosing the paths of becoming future lead-ers of Europe.

But let me get back to the last mentioned fact. One of our Projects, Vision, is celebrating 20 years of existence. What else can be carved in our historical “stones” and be worth mentioned? The fact that, for the first time, we are having an official collaboration between Vision and the ESTIEM Magazine.

By synchronising the Vision topic Green Supply Chain with the 44th issue’s Focus topic, we not only broadened the possibilities for our part-ners on an European-wide scale, but we also got a real in-depth analysis of the subject itself by acquiring a great range of articles written by spe-cialists: some professors from the 12 universities that organised one of the 9 Vision seminars series, the Vision Central Partner, STILL, as well as a renowned expert from Ohio State University (with the help of the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE)).

Additionally, throughout the pages of this ESTIEM Magazine, you can learn not only about the latest changes, improvement and plans of some of our Committees, Projects and Initiatives, what is it like to be centrally active and where the advantages and disadvantages lay, but also about the outstanding time that 5 people spent during their months as exchange students.

Enjoy reading!

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Project LeaderSorana Ioniţă

Editorial StaffSorana IoniţăEdmund Salzmann Alaz Şenol

LayoutPublic Relations Committee

DesignManu Joshi Edmund SalzmannJean-Yves Lemelle Mark Kremer

With kind support by:Löw & Salzmann GbR

Article AcquisitionSorana Ioniţă Svetlana SmirnovaEdmund Salzmann

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DisclaimerThe contents may not always re-flect the opinion of the publisher. Any reproduction or copy is per-mitted only with the permission of the editors.

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Sorana IoniţăMagazine Project Leader 2012/2013

4 INTRODUCTION

President’sSpeech

Dear Reader,

The global economy is again on track after the re-covery from the latest financial crisis. Companies are continuously seeking the best possible ways which sup-port them to sustain and broaden their customer port-folio, notwithstanding that the concept of the “customer society” is evolving and transforming into a community of more socially and environmentally responsible peo-ple. One way to remain competitive and positively per-ceived in the turbulent flows of “cutting edge” business ideas is to introduce Green Supply Chain Management at the company.

Enhancement of new technologies enables compa-nies to leverage future capital investment, which might occur due to the escalating deterioration of the environ-ment, especially the scarcity of raw materials. In fact, Green Supply Chain Management does not only mean to be environmentally friendly, but it is also a business val-ue driver for establishing and managing a well-perceived company producing high quality goods.

The concept originates from the composition of environmental and supply chain management, thus representing an interdisciplinary field with plenty of opportunities for Industrial Engineers and Managers. Combining the Engineer ing knowledge and the Economic sense shall drive the society to take actions to make the world better. Albeit it is hard to find the stone with the engraved key strategies, we should be responsible to incorporate such values in an organisa-tion’s vision.

ESTIEM has been growing rapidly in the last year. It is opening up its member portfolio for newer and newer universities. Our 68 Local Groups are doing their best to support their members in 27 countries to be a bit more extraordinary than casual IEM students all over Europe. The benefits of our organisation are that it sup-ports the free flow of great ideas and establishes friend-ships rapidly, unexpectedly. ESTIEMers can be pioneers with engineering solutions, whilst they can be dreamers to make a vision happen.

With promoting and supporting the idea of the com-bination of environmental responsibility and manage-ment, I believe that you can be the part of the com-munity that will develop Europe’s industry further, together.

I am more than happy to invite you to read the 44th issue of the ESTIEM Magazine, after looking at the con-tent’s pages, I am sure you will enjoy it!

In high ESTIEM,

Csaba HartmannPresident of ESTIEM 2013

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6introduction

students from five different countries founded an organisation, which they named ESTIEM: European

Students of Industrial Engineering and Management. Its aim was and still is to establish and foster interrelations

among European students of Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM).

Back in 1990,

After 23 years, it has grown into an organi-sation bringing together 50 000 students from 68 universities in 26 European countries, and is still growing. All these universities offer courses in IEM. Based on this structure, ESTIEM forms links between students, academics and companies in order to create a Europe-wide, multi-level IEM network. ESTIEM has continuously increased the number of its activities, thus being able to offer a great variety of events to IEM students and an opportunity to experience different cultures, take part in international projects and become friends with other ESTIEMers from all over Europe.

The decision-making body of ESTIEM is the Council, which meets twice a year, in autumn and in spring. Each university, represented by its so-called “Local Group”, sends two student represent-atives. The six members of the Board of ESTIEM are elected during the autumn Council Meeting. The Board is responsible for the management, co-ordination and administration of the association.

Besides taking leadership positions in the Board and as Project Leaders, ESTIEM members can also take up more responsibility by working in one of the Committees. With lots of teams and tasks to choose from, there is a place for everyone.

Naturally, the backbone of ESTIEM is the European IEM student. The students involved in ESTIEM incorporate both the skills required for modern business and an open-minded approach to-wards other people and cultural issues.

For more detailed information about our organ-isation and its activities, please visit our website at www.estiem.org. Here you can also find everything you need to know if you want to get involved. So don’t hesitate and start moving… you will not re-gret it! n

ESTIEM is the only Europe-wide organisa-tion of students of Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM). Our goal is fostering relations between IEM students across Europe and support-ing them in their personal and professional devel-opment. We achieve this by organising a diverse portfolio of activities and events, and by providing a platform for communication and intercultural exchange.

We promote the concept of IEM by establishing contacts between students, companies and institu-tions. Contributing to mutual understanding across Europe, our unique ESTIEM spirit stands for over-coming borders, being open minded and combining work and fun.

Our Mission

7 INTRODUCTION

Work

Fun

Culture FriendshipSpirit

Work hard, play hard!

Intercultural valuesWe benefit from our cultural diversity. It opens

our minds, enables us to think in European dimen-sions and helps building international friendships.

Organisational valuesOur democratic organisation with a f lat hier-

archy encourages participation from all our mem-bers. We are a non-political, non-religious and non-profit organisation. We are free from discrim-ination on any base.

AtmosphereThe ESTIEM-spirit creates a motivating atmos-

phere of tolerance, friendship and fun combined with professionalism. It encourages successful teamwork.

NetworkWe believe in a strong, interacting network as

the foundation of our organisation.

DevelopmentBeing active in ESTIEM gives our members

the chance to develop on a personal and profes-sional level. They gain practical experiences and important soft-skills needed in today’s business life. Through our partners we facilitate contacts between students and companies.

We ensure the continuity and learning ability of our organisation. Our innovative and entrepre-neurial culture is a driving force behind continuous improvement of ESTIEM.

AlumniThe experiences and the personal network in-

fluence our lives even after our active ESTIEM life. We value the input given by former ESTIEMers as an important source of information.

Our Core Values

ESTIEM Projects & Committees

Academic DaysThe goal of Academic Days is to share ESTIEM universities knowledge

with the network. It supports the personal and professional development of students across Europe willing to complete their curriculum. In order to achieve this, two events per year are organised and each of them provides participants deep insights into a specific topic in which the organising Local Group’s university has a high expertise.

Europe3DWithin a 5-day seminar series the participants get a basic picture of the host-

ing country. A special focus thereby lays on national characteristics in politics and economy. Lectures given by experts from politics, science and economy shall provide the participants with a theoretical insight. On the other hand the Project’s aim is to integrate our guests actively in this seminar. Especially to include the practical aspect, the Project cooperates with companies for excur-sions and lectures.

Summer AcademyThrough the Summer Academy Project, ESTIEM recognizes the importance

of and takes responsibility for providing knowledge of ethics and sound lead-ership among future leaders of Europe. It was set up to bring international students together during summer holidays to engage in open discussion, group work, debate and private study under a senior Academic Leader.

VisionVision Seminar Series aims to improve the personal skills and capabili-

ties of the Industrial Engineering and Management students in Europe. The seminars contain a balanced mixture of academic lectures, workshops and company visits, which are combined with cultural and free-time activities of the organising city. Through those activities the participants of a Vision Seminar develop themselves both personally and professionally. Each year’s Vision Seminar series focuses on one main topic to which all Vision seminars are connected. The current main topic is Vision - Green Supply Chain.

Student GuideThe ESTIEM Student Guide is ESTIEM’s guiding service provided

to any student who is interested in studying Industrial Engineering and Management in Europe: an online database filled in by students, sharing academic and practical information on cities and universities.

TIMESThe Tournament In Management and Engineering Skills (TIMES) is the larg-

est pan-European case study competition solely for the students of Industrial Engineering and Management. This prestigious, highly acclaimed event is the flagship project of ESTIEM. It has successfully been organised since 1994 and at-tracts around 1000 top European students every year. After Local Qualifications in 68 different universities and 7 Semi-Finals in selected cities, the winning team of the Final is awarded the title of Europe’s “IEM Students of the Year”.

AcademicDays

Summer Academy2012

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8introduction

ESTIEM Projects & Committees

Corporate Relations CommitteeThe Corporate Relations Committee coor-

dinates the relations between ESTIEM, compa-nies and universities jointly with the Board. The Committee’s work covers a number of fields with the aim of improving and simplifying ESTIEM’s re-lations with companies and universities, such as up-dating co-operation proposals, creating and gather-ing results for different surveys or training people on how to approach companies and universities. The Corporate Relations Committee also plays an active role in supervising and supporting Projects and other Committees with regards to sponsors and academic supporters.

Financial and Legal CommitteeThe Financial and Legal Committee’s role is to

ensure ESTIEM’s compliance with all laws and reg-ulations. It supports the Board, other Committees, Projects and Local Groups in all financial and legal matters. On one hand, it consists of experienced ESTIEMers and ESTIEM Alumni, who are moti-vated to provide advice whenever requested. On the other hand, active Committee members work on creating and updating Best Practice Documents, trainings, templates, etc. for all related topics. Since many people are unexperienced with fi-nances and regulations, the Financial and Legal Committee aims at helping them to deal with them correctly. Furthermore, the Financial Controllers, who perform every year the audit of the financial books of ESTIEM, are part of the Committee.

Grants CommitteeThe Grants Committee supports ESTIEM’s ap-

plications for EU Grants and aims to establish and develop knowledge on public funding opportuni-ties and their application procedures. It also wants to share the existing knowledge with as many ESTIEMers as possible and to support more and more Local Groups apply for an EU Grant for their events.

Information Technology CommitteeThe IT Committee maintains the mail, in-

tranet, and web servers of ESTIEM and coordi-nates all IT-related development in the organisa-tion, such as regarding the IT backend system (.NET platform/C#). In addition, its members offer troubleshooting services and technical advice to ESTIEMers. »

Business BoosterAt Business Booster we are aiming to cre-

ate an environment where you can get all need-ed in format ion, exper ience and support to excel in your future professional endeavors. The goal of this unique environment is to boost en-trepreneurial spirit and engage ESTIEMers, Alumni and companies to collaborate with each other.

ESTIEM Magazine The official publication of ESTIEM provides

the perfect platform to reach a target group of approximately 50 000 students of Industrial Engineering and Management at universities all over Europe. The ESTIEM Magazine is published twice a year and distributed among IEM students, graduates and also professors and companies across Europe, through the ESTIEM network.

BrainTrainerBrainTrainer is a Project designed to develop

leadership, presentation, business and human skills of the participants through professional trainings lasting one or two days. Its aim is to coach and develop the participants to become more professional and successful in their organisation as well as in their own future career.

businessbooster

9 introduction

Knowledge Management CommitteeKnowledge Management Committee does two

things. First, updating & creating Best Practice Documents by documenting the collective experi-ences of ESTIEMers throughout time - from organ-ising a Project to how to be a Leader, available on-line on the ESTIEM Portal. Second, managing the quality of ESTIEM events by collecting feedback from the event participants in order to make Event specific and Project Specific Reports, showing the development of ESTIEM’s Projects and events.

Members CommitteeThe Members Committee supports the mem-

bers and provides information for those students interested in joining the ESTIEM organisation by forming their own Local Group. They guide them through the whole process, starting from establish-ing contact – via the guest and observation period – until fully pledged membership. Also, Members Committee takes care about Requirements that Local Groups are expected to fulfill, tutors Local Groups that are already members of ESTIEM and tries to figure out what Local Groups need on lo-cal level, cooperates with the Trainers on Tour to fulfill these needs that have issues about any possi-ble topic (HR, PR, Recruitment, Fundraising) and fosters connections between Local Groups.

Public Relations CommitteeThe aim of the Public Relations Committee is

to take care of ESTIEM’s outer appearance. The Committee is responsible for communicating the brand of ESTIEM and increasing the aware-ness both inside and outside of ESTIEM. The PR Committee works with several different tools to achieve this, for instance designing PR material, creating design templates and guidelines, as well as working on press and social media visibility.

Trainings CommitteePersonal development is part of ESTIEM’s vi-

sion – and it is what ESTIEM trainings are meant for! By passing on knowledge, skills and attitude in their sessions, ESTIEM trainers support you on your path in ESTIEM and in life. With the devel-opment of its members the whole organisation is developing – the Training Committee aims at im-proving the work of Local Groups, Projects and Committees likewise.n

Copyright: Bart van Eijden

10introduction

The company STILL GmbH is an industrial textbook example of environmental responsibility based on technological progress. The Hamburg-based forklift specialist offers its international cus-tomers a product portfolio that sets standards for energy efficiency, sustainability and environmental friendliness throughout the industry. While the se-ries production of hybrid forklift trucks has been in full swing since 2011, the future of completely exhaust-free internal combustion powered forklift trucks using fuel cell technology is just in its start-ing blocks. About 50 ESTIEM network students visited STILL as part of the current VISION pro-ject series that relates to the subject of the ‘Green Supply Chain’.

An intact ecosystem is the basis of existence both for us and future generations. They are also aware of this at STILL, the leading provider of customized intralogistics solutions worldwide and the premium partner of this year’s VISION project series. At this traditional Hamburg-based company the focus is just as much on recyclable materials, sparing manufacturing processes and environmen-tall friendly workplaces as it is on the research and development of alternative drive technologies.

A central sustainability milestone in the recent past has been the development of the first fully hy-brid forklift truck. The RX 70 Hybrid has been in series production at STILL since 2011. This vehicle is based on the proven RX 70 diesel truck, already the most energy-saving forklift truck in its class. In addition the hybrid version provides a fuel saving of up to 15 per cent. The secret lies in its so-called ‘ultracaps’ (high-performance double-layer capaci-tors), which are housed in the rear part of the ve-hicle. They are able to store the energy released by the vehicle during braking and to then make it available again for acceleration.

Meanwhile, numerous STILL hybrid trucks are in use at companies in a wide range of industries. For example, at the company ALBA Nord GmbH, a subsidiary of the Berlin-based ALBA Group, an environmental service provider and raw materials trader. Another example is Kuehne + Nagel. Last year the exhibition department of this company, Germany’s number one forwarding company, hired an entire fleet of energy-saving RX 70 Hybrids. 20 of these trucks have since been in use at the ex-hibition centres in Hanover, Dusseldorf, Cologne, Nuremberg and Munich. ‘We have tested several

Green logistics in silver-orange livery

»

11CAREER

of the latest generation of forklift trucks in exhibi-tion operations. STILL’s RX 70 Hybrid got by far the best marks and with a considerably lower con-sumption than comparable models,’ says Andreas Kerkmann, the branch manager of Kuehne + Nagel Expo Service in Hanover.

Another very promising alternative and sus-tainable drive technology that is being massive-ly promoted by STILL is fuel cell technology. Appropriate vehicles are operated on pure hydro-gen, which reacts with oxygen in a fuel cell in-stalled in the vehicle. As a result electrical energy is released, by means of which the vehicle can be operated. This technology has the great advantage that no pollutants whatsoever are emitted that could burden our environment. No carbon par-ticulate, no nitrogen oxides, no carbon dioxide (CO2)—the ‘exhaust’ consists of pure water.

STILL developed the first prototypes of hy-drogen-powered forklift trucks back in 2002 and they have been practically tested in a variety of pi-lot projects since 2003. For example, at Munich and Hamburg airports, at the port of Hamburg, at the company Logistik AG (HHLA) and at the chemical corporation BASF. However, STILL’s fuel cell forklift trucks are also proving their qualities outside of Germany. For example, the Belgian re-tailing company Colruyt, which is even generat-ing hydrogen for the company’s own filling station itself by means of electric energy, which in turn is generated from wind turbine and solar installa-tions. The Danish DIY superstore chain STARK uses STILL fuel cell forklift trucks, a total of four being deployed there. ‘Through the use of fuel cell forklift trucks we want to make our company even more environmentally friendly and make our con-

tribution towards further reducing the CO2 emis-sions in this country’, says Henrik Lindstøm, the logistics director of STARK.

In addition to alternative drive systems, tech-nologies that enable as efficient and therefore as sustainable an operation as possible of ‘classic’ gas, diesel and electric forklift trucks play a key role in STILL’s corporate culture. Which is why STILL developed its Blue-Q technology in 2008, an in-telligent autopilot for economy and environmental responsibility. Equipped with this innovative tech-nology the driver can start an efficiency mode at the press of a button and thereby reduce the energy consumption of the vehicle by up to 20 per cent. Thanks to intelligent optimization of the character-istic curve, energy is saved whenever this does not impair the work process. Even the electrical aux-iliary consumer units—which account in total for up to 35 per cent of the energy consumption of an electric forklift truck—are switched off automati-cally when they are not needed. This pays off: less energy consumption and less wear result in lower CO2 emissions and a longer product service life.

So there were more than enough reasons for the ESTIEM network to visit STILL as part of the current VISION project series that relates to the subject of the ‘Green Supply Chain’. Last October the company welcomed 50 trainee industrial en-gineers from all over Europe to the STILL Arena in Hamburg where it put on an attractive two-day supporting programme for the occasion. The stu-dents were not only given a fascinating insight into the research and development of the alternative drive technologies described above, but right away were also able to apply the knowledge that they had acquired. They were divided into groups. Various case studies were then processed and presented to the full assembly. ‘The event was also tremen-dous fun for us’, says Jan Christoph Sachse of the International Corporate Communications depart-ment at STILL. ‘The students proved to be excep-tionally interested and highly motivated to make an active contribution of their own. This resulted in constructive discussions and interesting visions of an increasingly green intralogistics system’. n

The RX 70 Hybrid stores the energy re l e a s e d d u r i n g braking in so-called ultracaps

Career 12

As being the Vision Corporate Relations Responsible for the Green Supply Chain Series I would like to tell you about my current involve-ment as a product of my engagement in ESTIEM. We successfully recruited STILL as the Premium Partner of the Vision Series and cooperated with them during the opening event Vision Hamburg.

Now, since the first of January 2013, I am working in the international corporate communica-tions department of STILL as a student trainee. My start began with the yearly Sales Kick-Offs. Within 9 days almost 800 salesmen from about 40 different countries come for three days to the headquarter of STILL in Hamburg to improve their skills. For a successful event of this size a detailed preparation is necessary. It begins with setting the schedule, choosing workshop topics and their leaders and ends with the evening program. While working

with different nations and culture it’s also expected to speak English well and to be accommodative.

Now, after the end of the Kick-Offs, I am learning more about the STILL products and their specific characteristics. My study focus is opera-tion management and with my personal interest in warehousing management I am going to con-centrate on the warehouse handling equipment by STILL. The automating of warehousing is an im-portant future challenge and also contains enough substance for my bachelor thesis.

You may have noticed some similarities to being an active member in ESTIEM. As a conclusion, I would like to point out that all the time, the effort and you as a person you put into ESTIEM will be worth it! n

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Put effort into ESTIEM and get profits out of it

CAREER13

Chocolate brings a little bit of luxury into eve-ryday life. It has lost none of its seductive allure over the centuries. Even stubborn people cannot resist its temptation, as tellingly shown by the film Chocolat in which sweet creations cast a spell over an entire provincial town.

This taste sensation is the product of a rather ordinary manufacturing process. The cocoa beans must be fermented and roasted, then comes the grinding and conching of the cocoa mass. How smoothly the finished chocolate melts and how it feels in the mouth is decided way back in the grind-ing process. Even tiny particles can be detected by the human tongue; therefore, the finer the consist-ency, the creamier the end product.

In order to achieve an optimal result, the choc-olate mass is put through a rolling system at differ-ent temperatures and revolution speeds. The pres-sure on the mass is continuously increased and by the end of the process, the particles are so small that the coating thickness on the metal cylinders is only about 20 micrometers. Even with particle sizes in this range, there is still a wide variety of flavors. The Japanese prefer chocolate with a parti-cle size of 11 micrometers, the Swiss allow 16 and for the Americans, it can be up to 20 micrometers.

A spectrometer from Carl Zeiss allows the coating thickness of the chocolate and therefore the particle size to be decided with micrometer preci-sion and without contact – right in the grinding process. The reflectance of the mass in relation to the wavelength is measured in the near infrared range (950 to 1,700 nanometers), which delivers the specific reflection spectrum. Continuous, sec-ond-by-second measuring allows every step of the grinding process to be followed very closely. Thus, the taste sensations that lie in store for chocoholics are already determined during production. n

... that the creaminess of chocolate can be measured?

Did you know...

CAREER 14

Board 2012 interviewing Board 2013

Natalie GyárfásVice President of FinanceInterviewed by Henrique Cruz, Vice President of Finance 2012

Having 2 Boardies from the same nationality as President and Vice President of Finance is becoming somewhat of a trend. Do you also carry Csaba’s dirty clothes in your suitcase?

Hehe, nope. Good question though. We always share the responsibility of carrying the Hungarian culture via pálinka and kolbász everywhere and we are also quite good in allocating the souvenirs we gathered in events to each other’s luggage. But this applies to all of my Boardies, since most of the time I am the one travelling with bigger suitcase. In re-turn they carry my luggage outside of the airport. Good deal, isn’t it?

How do you see ESTIEM´s finances in 2020?Well, I see it pretty much the same the way it

is now, developing and growing. I believe it is a never-ending story. So I do not think ESTIEM’s finances would reach a point where the Vice President of Finance could lay back and relax. Still, I hope that by 2020 ESTIEM will not face financial income problems, so the biggest issue will be how to spend money wisely.

If ESTIEM were a superhero, which one would it be and why?

Ninja turtles! Because they are green, working in a cool team and having fun all the time.

What would you like the year of 2013 in ESTIEM to be remembered for?

A year in which ESTIEM takes another step forward via developing itself and its members and expanding into new countries, Local Groups and regions are establishing a stronger bond, Projects and Committees are cooperating, Leaders form their family concept and we all together create a platform where new ideas can be realised. And at the end I hope 2013 won’t be different from the previous years in regards of its most important as-pect: ESTIEMers are enjoying their time together wherever they are in Europe.

Raphael EderVice President of EducationInterviewed by Marc Hedler, Vice President of Education 2012

All the good things are three, 2013 is your year! What is going to happen?

It is true; the Council in Belgrade decided that »

15INSIDE ESTIEM

2013 is going to be my year as the Vice President of Education.

First of all I want to recall what ESTIEMers have already achieved since some students had the crazy idea of founding a European wide organisa-tion for IEM students more than 20 years ago. They brought people together, made professional and personal experiences, fostered international rela-tions and see themselves as Europeans – of course, I will continue spreading this unique ESTIEM spirit.

Within the last years, many great initiatives, especially aiming at professional development, have found their way into ESTIEM. Developing Academic Days and Brain Trainer into strong pro-jects, establishing the Training Committee and fostering cooperation with professional external organisations is my second main field.

Finally, I strongly support any kind of new idea which is spreading further our core values. There is high potential in various fields such as social re-sponsibility and although ESTIEM is quickly grow-ing, we should never forget that it is not about maintaining an organisation, but rather about the “US” fulfilling.

What was your most unique ESTIEM experience over the past years?

Over the last 3.5 years I have attended all kind of events. In more than 20 ESTIEM events I have not only learnt so much about various topics and myself but also met many amazing people and their cultures. A short outtake of remarkable experienc-es of ESTIEM spirit would sound like this:

Local Group exchanges between St. Petersburg and Karlsruhe, where we played ‘Schnaps’ for more than ten hours until we eventually reached ‘100’. After a great Vision event about ‘Leadership’, we travelled more than 24 hours by train just to ‘visit’ Norway for less than half an hour. At an Academic Days event we challenged some random Finnish students in the sauna – and won. During the Summer Academy, we spent countless hours talk-ing and I experienced ESTIEM’s strength in bring-ing people together in a very new way.

In brief, it is always about ‘we’ - ESTIEMers en-joying a great time together - and all these stories conclude as my unique ESTIEM experience.

When did you decide to go for the ESTIEM Board and why did you apply for this specific position?

Honestly, there was not this single day when I woke up and decided to apply for the ESTIEM Board. It was a long process without a clear aim in the beginning.

I was around in ESTIEM for quite a while, knew what was going on and saw opportunities for my contribution. Moreover, I was about to finish my Bachelor studies and looking for some chal-lenges besides just continuing university. Talking to previous Boardies, other active ESTIEMers, friends and finally spending quite some time during the Summer Academy reflecting about my impact on spreading intercultural understanding, led me to the decision to apply for the ESTIEM Board.

I was looking for a position whose tasks are not written in stone and where I have lots of space for development. I do not want to turn ESTIEM in a super professional organisation, but extending our (event) portfolio in the academic and educational field highly motivates me. Thus, applying as Vice President of Education was the logical decision.

Imagine yourself sitting in front of your laptop in February 2014 - how would you summarise 2013 in 6 words?Europe Suspenseful Travelling Interculturality Education Mind-blowin

16INSIDE ESTIEMINSIDE ESTIEM

more understanding and able to handle situations in a friendly and fair way. Of course I would like to stay in a good shape and keep up doing push-ups during events.

When two Presidents meet.....then the world comes to an end, but when

the third arrives, joy and fun arise, bottles shaped as a dice relentless try to cook rice. Seriously speaking, the informal meetings of a successor and a predecessor are the most useful points of keeping the progress going on. In positions with high reli-ability, people should always remember to ask for help and advice when it is necessary. My predeces-sor, Mr. Azcue, helped me a lot during the start and is also up nowadays for a quick chat about how things are going on. As a conclusion, I would say that the importance of handovers and conserving knowledge is essential for the sustainability of our organisation.

Jonas EnlundVice President of ActivitiesInterviewed by Gregor Herr, Vice President of Activities 2012

With whom would you like to change your life for one day and why?

I would like to change my life with anyone that I can learn a lot from, but to have something spe-cific I would instead change it with the 5 year old me. Just hanging around with friends where I grew up and do not have to care about anything. What else can anyone request? The best time in life is when you can only focus on what you want to do

Csaba HartmannPresidentInterviewed by Xavier Azcue, President 2012

After a year away from the Central ESTIEM life, what made you come back to run for ESTIEM President?

When I returned to Budapest after my half-year at the Technical University of Munich, I went to the welcome meeting of Local Group Budapest and started to feel belonging to the ESTIEM fam-ily again. All my former memories of established friendships, experience about countries, travel-ling and participating in trainings came back and brought back inspiring feelings. My aim was to spend the last year of my studies in the most ef-ficient way, so I decided to take the last chance and use my experience to bring ESTIEM further. So I considered having a trip to Belgrade ... and it started again...

The accordionist. Elaborate.As some of you might know I am also an ac-

cordion player. I studied the instrument for 9 years and took part in many concerts, competitions in Hungary and of course brought it to many ESTIEM events. Playing music besides work was a delight-ful activity for me; it requires the work of a to-tally different part of the brain than for studying or working. Nevertheless, you can easily create a cosy and friendly atmosphere for the people in your sur-roundings. Imagine warm summer twilight after an exhausting working day. You are sitting at home with your beloved and opening up a glass of wine and the lullaby of an accordion fades in. Isn’t that embarrassing?

A year from now, what will have changed in ESTIEM? And in Csaba?

In one year I still see ESTIEM as an organisa-tion with a professional approach driven and man-aged by students. The initial mission and aim of the organisation creates the perfect opportunity for students to develop their soft skills and entrepre-neurial spirit. In the yearly strategy I would em-phasise a lot on the importance of initiatives sup-porting this mission. Personally, I would like to learn and gain experience about team management in an international team, how to handle different personalities and keep overview about projects, committees and the network itself. My aim is to be »

17 INSIDE ESTIEMINSIDE ESTIEM

cation as well and do not rush ourselves into get-ting back to all the work at home. Israel is the one who would make sure our things work properly and make sure that we stay equipped and focused as well as helping the others remember what is needed to be remembered. Nati will be the happiness re-sponsible and hopefully continue to give me some of her food. In the end, I think that it is the mix of people that we have in the Board that makes us move forward and cover for each other’s gaps and losses.

Edmund SalzmannVice President of Public RelationsInterviewed by Victoria Martinez, Vice President of Public Relations 2012

What is your biggest personal challenge for this year?My head is always coming up with ideas and

plans, from crazy to feasible, always wanting to implement them all. There are so many things out there that are interesting that the hardest challenge is to cut it down to the ones that are important. And keeping these things in order, choosing pri-orities, keeping track of friends and family all over Europe while not over-exhausting myself. I think, that is the biggest challenge.

It is known that ESTIEMers have to multitask be-tween student life and ESTIEM. Board year is even more time consuming, how will your life be this year?

Well, I can tell a bit about my first two months, maybe that gives the best picture. Since October, I am working full time at a technology consultancy, and now am writing my Bachelor Thesis there. During the day, I write my thesis and work for the company, which is very interesting and challeng-ing. Lunchtime is email time, otherwise it would be too much to answer in the evenings. On the way home, I’m often logging into Skype on my phone, having some chats already on the train. Evenings are for friends, chats and emails – a good mixture

no matter if it is to relax, play games or take a hike in the forest.

I forget about time if I...Play some Sim City or if I enter my complete

relaxation mood.

When and where have you experienced the ESTIEM spirit the first time?

I first experienced the ESTIEM Spirit in my first event, Vision in Trondheim 2010, but it was first in CM Porto the same year that I understood how big it was. The year after, when I was at the LR Forum in Poznan, I met very many other ESTIEMers that started to get more active at the same time as me, and after getting to know more of these people, there was no return.

What do you think is going to be the biggest chal-lenge this year?

To compromise on how to work with others. When working with people from other cultures, some cultural crashes will occur, but they can most of the times be solved quite easily. The hard thing, as the lonely Nordic (sorry Yusuf, you’re not com-pletely there yet :) ) in the team, will be to still be able to work in a Nordic way.

Imagine you are flying with your Co-Boardies to the Board Meeting in Famagusta and your plane crashes. You are the only ones which survive and you end up on a lonely island. What would be in that situation your contribution to the team and for what would be the others useful for?

I would use my Nordic survival skills to teach the others how to create tools and how to live on the nature and use my divine strength to create a raft out of the airplane parts and logs. Csaba would be the one hunting for wild animals and serve eve-ryone with hand-made turtle salami. Eddi would be the one making sure that we do not panic too much and stay civilised and do not end up acting like apes. Rapha would be the leisure responsible, ensuring we use the nice weather to get some va-

18INSIDE ESTIEM

Israel PohlVice President of AdministrationInterviewed by Jean-Yves Lemeller, Vice President of Administration 2012

What is your favourite song and why?Weebl - The Amazing Horse. Why? Come to an

IT Coordination Meeting and find out!

Any tips on how the Vice President of Administration practices for the Council Meeting Quorum especially for our new Guest Bydgoszcz?

Bydgoszcz is easy: Büd-goschd. Try Kranj, our newest guest from Slovenia!

Was becoming a nerd-head of a huge student asso-ciation your childhood dream? Seriously?

Not really... But I did always like technology and engineering, and combining that passion with the opportunity to travel and to gain some lead-ership experience feels indeed like a dream come true.

What was, is and will be your main motivation to be in the Board of ESTIEM?

When I applied, my motivation was to con-tribute to an extraordinary network of European students and at the same time to learn as much as I can and make unique experiences which you cannot make just by studying at a university. What motivates me today is to have the opportunity to meet great people every day, to work with them and to tackle challenging projects together. In the future, I hope to be motivated by looking back on the things we already achieved while also still see-ing new opportunities for further improvement.

Why is the Portal not like Facebook, I really do not get it?

Well... Blue just really is not our colour. ;) n

in between, depending on the day of the week. Additionally, I have short trips over the weekend to ESTIEM events, feeling and living the spirit. Right now, I am on the plane to Kaunas for Board Meeting 2. When my thesis is finally finished after Council Meeting Eindhoven, I will still face the challenge to also finance the rest of the Board year through my job as design freelancer. Good thing about freelancing: You can work wherever you want.

In a war between the Avengers and the X-men, who would win?

Mother Nature always wins.

How would you pack your suitcase for a trip of 30 days in row?

Neatly organised, exactly counted amount of clothes (also depending on how much weight is al-lowed), hygiene bag on the side, ESTIEM flag in the inside pocket and my MacBook on top, fast to reach. Camera strapped over the shoulder and my towel most likely drying on top of the suitcase. Hand luggage only.

Which is the country you want to visit the most?Only taking Europe into account: Russia, my

personal mystery. Portugal, because of the sum-mer. And one random country, for a summer trip with the greatest team ever.

If you could pick a city to live, where would that be and why?

Where I lay my head is home.

If you would incarnate in an animal, which animal would you be and why?

A cat, for sure. The ones who know me know why.

19 INSIDE ESTIEM

From January to March most of the T.I.M.E.S. (Tournament in Management and Engineering Skills) Semi-Finals happened. All of them have been a great success and the different teams from all over Europe could prove their case solving skills in interesting cases.

In every Semi-Final, nine teams solved two cas-es on two case days and presented their solution in front of a jury. The teams challenged themselves and evolved further from their experiences after their first day. Interesting cases, company visits,

On the road to success7 teams on their way to the top

nice dinners with company representatives and of course meeting new people from all over Europe. That is what a T.I.M.E.S. Semi-Final is all about.

The seven winning teams of each Semi-Final will now proceed to the last round, the T.I.M.E.S. Final in Munich. We wish all of them good luck and a great time!

I would like to thank all my organizers, since they have done an amazing job making all these awesome Semi-Finals happen. Without you, the events would have never been so great and you gave a huge impact on developing this great pro-ject with me. You have been a great team and I will miss our weekly chats and working with you. Now, I would like to give them the opportunity to talk about how they experienced organising a T.I.M.E.S. Semi-Final. n

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Isabel Azcaraté, Project Leader of T.I.M.E.S. Semi-Final Gothenburg:

“Organising a T.I.M.E.S. Semi-Final makes you grow as a person and the company contacts you get open doors for the future. Being part of such a group as my local T.I.M.E.S. team makes me feel that nothing is too far out of reach. If you just find the motivation, anything is possible. All in all, the T.I.M.E.S. Semi-Final Gothenburg went really well and I am very proud of my fellow students for making it real.”

Niklas Brück, Project Leader of T.I.M.E.S. Semi-Final Karlsruhe:

“Organising a T.I.M.E.S. Semi Final was a great experience I wouldn’t have missed. We had an amazing week with interesting cases and diversi-fied activities. I want to highlight our dinners with delicious food and an open bar on each evening.”

Kaan Yavuz, Project Leader of T.I.M.E.S. Semi-Final Ankara-Bilkent:

“For all of us, T.I.M.E.S. Semi-Final Ankara-Bilkent was an experience of working hard and playing hard as much as possible. As Local Group Ankara Bilkent, we organised this event with the aim of achieving the best in every aspect and we are really satisfied with our efforts. More important than that, from the beginning of our first prepara-tions to the last day of the event, we enjoyed every moment and shared great memories.”

Orhun Celik, Project Leader of T.I.M.E.S. Semi-Final Istanbul-Bogazici:

“During the Semi-Final, I could not realise that it was going great and that all of the participants were enjoying and were satisfied with the event. But, when I was about to start my last speech in front of the participants, company representatives and the organisation team, I realised that we did a great job and all of the participants looked so hap-py. That was the moment when I felt relaxed and I felt proud of my great organisation team.”

Timo Scholz, Project Leader of T.I.M.E.S. Semi-Final Kaiserslautern:

“The T.I.M.E.S. Semi Final in Kaiserslautern was a week full of hard work for both participants and organisers, but it was worth every second. The stunning moment when I first saw so many organis-ers working together, people feeling responsible for the success of the event almost 24/7 and the teams praising our work in the end, it all filled me with a tremendous amount of pride and happiness.”

Diána Gáal, Project Leader of T.I.M.E.S. Semi-Final Budapest:

“As a project leader it was a big challenge, sometimes it was really hard, but finally, when I saw that everybody was smiling, well...that was a really warm feeling. T.I.M.E.S. is one of the best events where you can learn everything about the ESTIEM spirit: Work hard, play hard”

João Correia, Project Leader of T.I.M.E.S. Semi-Final Aveiro:

“By organising this event, I have improved my Corporate Relations skills, corporate contacts and I have gained a new vision about the corporate world. Without a doubt, it was the kick start that our Local Group needed to integrate and motivate the Industrial Engineering and Management stu-dents of our university. Not just motivating them to become ESTIEMers, but also active ESTIEMers. It has been a great experience and for the most of our organising team, a new one, but we managed to overcome all the setbacks we encountered, and I am sure we organised a great event!” n

What it feels like to be a TIMES Semi-Final Project Leader...

21 INSIDE ESTIEM

The 20th Vision seminar series “Green Supply Chain” has been a really exciting adventure starting in October last year in Hamburg, making stops in Vienna & Graz, Linköping & Stockholm, Helsinki & Tampere, Izmir, Porto, Lisbon & Seville, St. Petersburg, Ilmenau & Dresden and will finish now with a seminar in Calabria and in the end of this May in Novi Sad with the Final Conference and the 20th anniversary celebration.

All of the seminars were a success and all of them so far exceeded my personal expectations by far. Let me show you a glimpse of it:

�� Visiting our Central Partner STILL in Hamburg and having probably one of the best Gala Dinners, including a live band

�� Having lectures by professors that are former ESTIEMers

�� ECTS recognition in Vienna & Graz

�� Participating in student world champion-ships, cottage nights and numerous amounts of Harlem Shake videos

�� A 12-day seminar event, organised by three Local Groups in two countries with a time zone change

�� Having a participant from Gent invited that is starting their own Local Group now

�� Having Guest Group Calabria organising the seminar and surprising us with a collaboration with another student organisation

�� And so much more…

Last but not least and most importantly we had over 260 ESTIEMers from all over Europe attend our ten seminars and learning about Green Supply Chain; seminars organised by 15 Local Groups in nine different countries.

We were able to implement the Vision Buddy System, bringing the central and local level clos-er and working together better throughout the events. Also, for the first time, the feedback was outsourced to our team and not to forget, we had the amazing Vision sun glasses and cups.

To sum it up, we were able to realise quite some new ideas and concepts and this would have not been possible without the great work and support of the Central team and also a big thanks to the outstanding work of the organisers and the com-munication we had during the series with monthly organisers chats.

Personally, for me, this has been a terrific expe-rience of being in charge of this project, participat-ing in some of the seminars and working together with an amazing international team. I am excited to see where the trip is going for the Vision Project with the next series.

All of you should attend at least one Vision event throughout your ESTIEM “career” and you will see what I am talking about.

On this note - You need Vision to see! n

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20 years of VisionTime to celebrate

Most probably not, if you have not attended a Europe3D event so far. For me, everything be-gan around 3 years ago when I went abroad for the first time, having no idea what to expect from something called “Europe3D Finland”. That week turned out to be one of the biggest steps in my life, opening up my mind on the highest level and starting a brand new life within a network going beyond international borders. I made 30 amazing friends from all around the world, while experi-encing the Finnish welfare society in three unique dimensions: Political sessions with people from the Finnish foreign ministry, factory visits and workshops to experience Finnish economy and all aspects of Finnish culture from Sauna and ice swimming to Kykkä World Championship and the Finnish language. Just a Europe3D event would make it possible to experience a country this deep with this much fun in one week and in the most affordable way.

Afterwards, I was so motivated, that I contrib-uted a lot to ESTIEM on local and central level and

attended more than 20 events in 12 countries to live and spread the “ESTIEM Spirit”, reaching each and every individual, reminding them that they have a chance to change their lives. Now I’m the project leader of Europe3D and currently study-ing in Finland as an Erasmus student. After three years, you can see how one event has inf luenced my life.

Nowadays, the central Europe3D Team of around 30 people from 13 different countries is working on this amazing project to maintain the highest quality of the events. We are doing our best to enable as much students as possible to ex-perience this pure awesomeness and enrich their studies with a brand new perspective. After two amazing events in France and Norway, we will have E3D Germany (Berlin & Munich), E3D Russia (St. Petersburg & Moscow) and E3D Macedonia (Skopje) this year. Don’t miss this great opportu-nity to change your life, join us and stay 3D! n

Do you think you see the world in 3D?

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Those of you who think that the ESTIEM calen-dar is empty for the summer, probably never heard about one of the most challenging ESTIEM events, mainly the ESTIEM Summer Academy (SAC). Already for the thirteenth time, two professors – our ESTIEM mentors: Dietrich Brandt and Jim Platts will choose 14 participants for two Summer Academies taking place in August 2013. If you try asking any former participant about Summer Academy, you will probably hear: it was a life – changing event, you cannot explain it if you were not there, you have to experience it on your own.

We could write that SAC is about leadership, self – ref lection and self – development or use some other catchy words. You should know, how-ever, that SAC is far beyond your person. It touches your and thirteen other people’s life, it makes you more aware of your influence on the group, limits of your mind and of your personality.

One of this year’s Summer Academies will take place in Poland. Organisers from the Local Team in Gdansk want to invite you to join Dietrich Brandt’s Summer Academy in Gdansk:

You will discover together with Professor Dietrich Brandt one of the most interesting re-gional cultures in Poland, called Kaszuby – it’s a rich and historically important region with beauti-ful surroundings and scenic views on Polish lakes. If you think that you know Poland, because you already visited Warsaw and Krakow, you will be surprised with how much the nature has to offer in Central Europe!

This year you will find all the needed informa-tion about SAC on the portal. Make a life – chang-ing experience in ESTIEM and apply from the 19th of April until the 12th of May for the Summer Academy 2013! n

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Life–changing experience in ESTIEMSummer Academy 2013

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Business Booster is one of the newest projects in ESTIEM. It had been present in our network for some time already, but at the Council Meeting in Belgrade, it became an official ESTIEM project.

The main goal of Business Booster is to promote entrepreneurship spirit among ESTIEMers. We, IEM (Industrial Engineering and Management) students, tend to forget that big corporations and worldwide companies are not the only options for our future. It is not just IE but also the M in our study name and program. Management is a very wide field, but it is also fundamental for starting up a business. That’s why we are the perfect mate-rial for becoming future owners, holders, entre-preneurs.

But let’s get a little more into detail. What we are working on right now are a few smaller pro-jects like cooperations with Datakite, organising a round table with alumni in autumn, and some other training events. But definitely the biggest, the biggest part of Business Booster, the part on which we are focusing most of our attention and human resources right now is SET.

SET - Summer Entrepreneurship Training - is a summer school for 30 ESTIEMers, with a program focusing on different aspects of entrepreneurship. A five-week long event, three countries, the best universities providing business oriented courses, experienced venture capitalists, and all of this fully funded. We are still at the starting stage, but we believe (we know!) it is going to be a huge develop-ment, boost if you will, for Business Booster and for the whole ESTIEM network.

So, basically, what does Business Booster do? We take care of the future of soon-to-be graduates, give them not just useful, but also essential knowl-edge to make their ideas grow and make them real. The most important thing we are trying to achieve is to raise the awareness, in every ESTIEMer, of the possibility of having something of their own, to be the king of their own castle.

Creating the creation, that’s what we do.

Keep on boosting! n

Business BoosterThe entrepreneurship centre of ESTIEM

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Within the Knowledge Management Committee (KMC), we care about storing and processing the experi-ences of the past for future generations of ESTIEMers. The Committee is consisted of Best Practice Document Task Group and Feedback System Team.

Since the recent establishment of the Training Commit tee, t he K nowledge Ma nagement Committee (KMC) started properly allocating more manpower and energy to focus on helping Local Groups (LGs) with their knowledge manage-ment issues. This has risen to be a hot topic inside the KMC and is an issue that is of importance for all LGs in ESTIEM. One of the KMC’s goal for this year is to push knowledge management to the local level of ESTIEM and aid all LGs in their knowledge management endeavours.

One of the characteristics of the current knowl-edge management in LGs is that they are not iden-tical: some LGs have many BPDs (Best Practice Documents) for collecting and sharing knowledge, while other LGs may have none. This is why com-ing up with a universal solution is not the right thing to do. The KMC is aiming to address these unique needs by first gathering information about the current status of knowledge management in LGs. After this, we will push to develop BPD tem-plates, platforms, and many other forms of man-aging knowledge according to the information we gather and provide the framework and environment for LGs to improve their current knowledge man-agement situation.

But while the KMC can offer guidance, support and hopefully in the near future, tangible tools for LGs, we encourage LGs to be proactive in their knowledge management. Create your own BPDs, your own Handover templates, or whatever you might find important to your LG specifically. It goes a long way for helping your LG in the future and you might just come up with the next big thing in ESTIEM’s knowledge management.

We will have a Working Group at the next Council Meeting in Eindhoven covering this hot topic, so join in on the fun and come shape the future of knowledge management in your Local Group. And if you have any questions or comments about knowledge management in LGs or about the KMC in general, you are more than welcome to approach us! n

You certainly know it: sustainability is the biggest challenge of this century. In Europe and everywhere, people, institutions and especially companies are con-cerned about their responsibility towards present and future generations. More and more try to understand and measure their impact on the environment and the society. Why not ESTIEM?

T he SER I - Soc ia l and Env i ronmenta l Responsibility Initiative – was created following that vision. Its team is constantly working to make

a change within ESTIEM and turn it truly green and responsible. Concretely, this includes raising awareness during interactive homemade train-ings, organising volunteering events, computing CO2 emissions produced during trips from Local Groups to Local Groups, developing partnerships with NGOs and a lot more. Everything is permit-ted to go green and sustainable, even the craziest ideas.

KMC transferring “the knowledge” to the Local Groups

Is ESTIEM as green as it looks?

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We like to help people. We like to have fun. We like to always know a little more.

ITC is the Information Technology Committee. Those who work in the committee understand all the hardware updates, the subtleties of the lap-top’s settings, always know what exactly you can do with your phone and what would be better not to touch. However, there is always someone who needs some help with this. The computer does not work? Need help with how to install a new version of Photoshop? There is no sound in your favourite The Sims 2? Or you urgently need to hack the e-mail of your boyfriend? We are happy to assist you.

Fun. A lot of people in this world live for fun. Others just prefer having fun for life. Honestly I’m not sure about these two expressions, but I know those who know how to Really have fun. Some call us nerds. Others call us geeks. But they do not even realise how crazy our every meeting is. Each member of the committee is a bright person with its unique interests, hobbies and ways of self-expression. But we all speak the same language, which is C++.

Every time our committee has a lot of different tasks; some of them we do faster, the others take a lot of time. But what distinguishes the IT guys - is the desire to succeed. We bring to an end any idea, even if we initially have no idea how to implement it. But do not forget that once our Portal was just someone’s idea.

A couple of important words about our benefac-tors: Benefactors - all those ESTIEMers who are interested in the IT Committee, but without spe-cial skills or experience in IT. Benefactors play an important role in the life of the entire IT ESTIEM infrastructure. They support us, help us and make our lives brighter. I’m proud of you. You are the best friends in the World.

To summarise, I would say that you just read a little bit about the life of not virtual Heroes, but real ones. And each member of the IT Committee deserves to bear the title of a Hero.

Want to become a real hero? Join the IT Committee, drop a line to leader.it@estiem.org n

Life of virtual HeroesWho are we... ? ITC!

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The seed of one of those ideas had been ger-minating in our head for some months before it blossomed, last year in Madrid. The Green Event Guide was ready and awesome. But something was missing to make it easily implementable by Local Groups. So during the last SERI Coordination Meeting, we decided to mobilize a team to spread the word: the Green Event Consulting Team was born. That group of motivated hippie-like mem-bers is there to support local project leaders in making their events eco-friendly while maintain-ing costs as low as possible. Respecting the envi-ronment should also make you saving some money.

Tips go typically from recycling trash and reducing printed material to banishing plastic cutlery, offer-ing veggie meals, reducing transportations and so forth. Some original actions include renting bikes or organising candle-light-only parties. You just need to think green, imagination does the rest. If you would like to contribute and get involved, do not hesitate to join the SERI team and, above all, think of us when organising green events! n

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interaction with the corporate and academic world and by providing the financial stability ESTIEM needs in order to continue growing.

Our goals for the year 2013 are focused on improving the number of our central ESTIEM Partners and improving the way the Corporate Relations Committee interacts with the ESTIEM Projects. Good communication is one of the big-gest challenges in a team which works virtually most of the time. Therefore keeping the good team spirit in the Committee is our third goal and the one that we continuously work on.

We are looking forward to a very successful year 2013, as our slogan says: Get lucky, find a Partner! n

Do you believe ESTIEM is a playground where we can bring the Network forward while developing our skills and competences? Join a team where you can learn how to engage the corporate world, develop creative partnerships and experience all this together with other ESTIEMers.

The Corporate Relations Committee is a team of inspired ESTIEMers who want to improve the way ESTIEM cooperates with companies and uni-versities. Our team members have been busy en-gaging our current partners to develop the coop-eration they have with ESTIEM and approaching potential partners. We all believe in the ESTIEM values: an open-minded network of international students, a playground to try out ideas and develop new skills. We aim at increasing the quality and impact of ESTIEM in our lives by providing more

CRC - Get Lucky, Find a Partner!

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What shall we do with the Language Programme Initiative?

But you can also find a way to educate yourself by finding a partner. Not by wearing a Corporate Relations Committee T-shirt, but by joining the virtual buddy system in which you can get in touch with an ESTIEMer who can teach you some skills in the language you are interested in, while you give some lessons in your mother tongue via Skype calls or chats.

These are only a few ideas we would like to work on and many more things can be accom-plished in the future.

I would like to end this article with a quote by Nelson Mandela:

“If you talk to a man in a language he under-stands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.” n

Hereby I would like to inform you about the LPI. Since last year’s July we have decided to breathe life into this Initiative again. There has been a presentation at Council Meeting Finland a long time ago (2010), but since then, not much ac-tion has been undertaken and that is where the new team comes into the spotlight. We hope to enrich the ESTIEM network with language based activi-ties in which the skills of ESTIEMers can become extended in a new way. Can you imagine an event in which you can learn the language of the Local Group you are staying at? This would for instance mean you can directly apply your lately acquired Spanish knowledge in the streets of sunny Seville when talking to los lugareños.

Or you can receive a toolkit with a crash course of the Cyrillic script before leaving for Saint Petersburg where you will attend a Vision so you will be able to read what is written on the buildings when you are walking along the Nevsky Prospekt.

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From 22nd to 27th of March the Corporate Relations Enthusiasts met in the beautiful, but freezing cold city of Bremen for the Spring Corporate Relations Committee (CRC) Coordination Meeting (CoM) 2013. Several participants were already active before, but many new CRC interested ESTIEMers attended the CoM as well. Some of them were so enthusiastic, that they even arrived faster than their suitcases.

The event officially started on the 23rd with a city tour of Bremen. Although the beautiful old city of Bremen was wonderfully illuminated by the morning sun, the freezing cold wind made this city tour more of a test of courage. Due to some terrific warm teas in the beautiful small tea houses and an ESTIEM song every now and then, the participants managed to warm up again and get the work start-ed in the early afternoon.

After lunch at the university, Nuno Carneiro, the Committee Leader of the CRC, introduced us to the CRC CoM by giving us an overview of the agenda for the following days. The first topic of discussion was the designing of a toolkit for new members of the CRC in the future. This toolkit will include all the information needed by ESTIEMers before approaching companies and uni-versities. The most interesting part was the right choice of documents needed and how to provide the information in a proper way. After this busy and successful day, a spectacular night in Bremen’s Club “Lagerhaus”, apparently a meeting point for 70’s disco music enthusiasts, followed, where the participants were able to show their dancehall ex-periences.

On the next morning, we came up with fresh ideas and a new structure for the CRC. Besides the already existing CRC Fundraising Team to contact the companies, there will be a Project Fundraising Team, to improve the integration and communi-cation with the ESTIEM projects in the future. Furthermore, a separate University Relations Team will take care of ESTIEM’s academic partners.

For all those created teams, new members and interested ESTIEMers are highly welcome to join.

After discussing the existing and possible University Relations and the promotion at the Council Meeting in Eindhoven, we had another freezing experience at Bremen’s fun fair, called “Osterwiese” and ended the evening in a Karaoke Bar. After showing the people “the reason to be an ESTIEMer” literally the whole bar was singing the ESTIEM song with us.

The Monday morning began with a brainstorm-ing session to search for new offers that ESTIEM can provide in the future. We came up with new packages which fit better to the needs of the com-panies. After successfully discussing a better inte-gration of the ESTIEM Projects to the CRC and provide a better support from both sides, Gregor Herr, the former Vice President of Activities, delivered a motivating and inspiring training on teamwork.

The last day started with a training on fund-raising. We got an awesome overview of the most important information to provide to the companies and the Do’s and Don’ts of fundraising activities. During the following CR Boot-camp we got into actual contact with companies.

After some really brave CRCers tasted the probably spiciest “Currywurst” in Bremen and de-served the bell of braveness, we had a last awesome evening together in Bremen’s Hofbräuhaus.

This amazing event might stay in some minds as the freezing CoM and in some others’ as the “where is my luggage?” CoM. But for sure it will stay in all of our minds as an awesome time with absolutely terrific CRC-people. n

CRC Coordination Meeting Bremen 22nd to 27th of March 2013

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The ESTIEM Book Initiative is a new and ex-citing possibility to get active in ESTIEM. When it was founded back in 1990, ESTIEM consisted of only 12 Local Groups. There was no internet or email, so one of the main problems of the first board was how to finance all the mailing costs.

The years afterwards brought many new chal-lenges to ESTIEM, but also many new members from countries that only a couple of years earli-er could not even speak freely about the wish of a European-wide organisation like ESTIEM. It is fascinating to see how former generations saw ESTIEM and how they shaped – time after time – the organisation that ESTIEM is today.

Now that we’re rapidly approaching our 25th anniversary, it is time for us to discover that his-tory and bring it all together. Our goal is to create a book until the 50th ESTIEM Council Meeting in spring 2015, including all the Projects, Committees and Initiatives and their development, presenting all the Local Groups and of course sum-ming up the whole history year by year. In other words, we want to capture the ESTIEM Spirit in a book.

How do we do that? There are several sources in the ESTIEM network (archives, ESTIEM maga-zines, Board reports and minutes from the CMs), but the most important resources are our alumni. They know all the anecdotes and stories that hap-pened off the record, which you will not find in any magazine or Board report. Of course we also want to include many great pictures from all the years, which might even reveal a lot about the de-velopment of European fashion over the years…

If you are interested in the history of ESTIEM, in creative writing, in design or edition or sim-ply in creating something big, that will last even when we have already left ESTIEM, then join the ESTIEM Book Initiative. There has been no such Project before, so we can build it all up from scratch and make our own decisions. We are both welcoming experienced ESTIEMers as well as young guns that can stay active until the book gets published. So help us, so that we can take a book from our bookshelf in 20 years and say ‘Yes – that’s me in ESTIEM, the best part of my student life!’ n

The long road we have goneESTIEM Book Initiative

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Those who have closely monitored my activ-ity in ESTIEM since day one (not many I pre-sume) must have noticed one of my passions: Public Relations. To be honest and objective – it is not a difficult passion to notice. Public Relations Committee (PRC) member from the moment I have become the Local Responsible of Local Group Belgrade, and a constant complainer on all brand-ing, media relations and social media topics during the General Assembly – as I said, not difficult to miss.

Bearing all of the above stated on mind, my de-cision to join PR-CR School 2011 in Seville and the 2012 one in Brussels shouldn’t come as a surprise. And as an ending chapter to my ESTIEM journey, coordinating this great event in 2013 comes natu-rally.

PR-CR School is envisioned as a training event focused on Public Relations and Corporate Relations topics. Participants go through the theo-ry basics, develop their PR and CR skills, and get the necessary experience for implementing this knowledge within their Local Groups and in their own professional future.

Lost in SevilleI have never gotten lost in a city. Ever. So it

really came as a surprise to get lost in Seville the moment I got there. Narrow streets, hundreds of shops, cute architecture and a lot of Spanish – maybe getting lost wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

The event itself went great. Old and new faces, my dearest PRC members, Local Group Seville veterans and newbies, and of course the scorching

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weather. 30°C in October – I say bring it on! A little bit of cerveza, a little bit of gigantic Mojitos, Madrid before and after – a perfect summer holiday in the beginning of autumn.

End notes: Amazing time. Surge of moti-vation. Topic ideas.

Reminder: Apply for a trainer next year.

Confused in BrusselsI applied as a trainer in 2012 and got the amaz-

ing opportunity to visit Brussels. This time, it re-quired more preparation, Skype chats, and some serious planning. I got invested in the event even more and was really looking forward to transfer-ring all the PR knowledge to new generations of ESTIEM.

That year, we introduced the pilot concept of having a case study with the goal of giving par-ticipants the option to apply the knowledge and experience from trainings to a real problem. This could have helped them to get an overview of the previous days, revise everything, get creative and develop a certain Public and Corporate Relations logic.

Good times in Brussels were at moments a bit shaded by my Bachelor thesis which I somehow fin-ished (almost) on time, but at the same time, a trip to Bruges with Sorana made this event of the best I visited.

End notes: Improve the case study con-cept. Prepare trainings in advance.

Reminder: Think about applying for the Vice President of Public Relations (VP of PR) position. Again.

Indecisive on ZlatiborThe grand moment finally came. Our Council

Meeting Belgrade unveiled its bubbles, the naked Victor, and an exciting General Assembly on the Zlatibor Mountain. I have never wanted more to apply for the position of the VP of PR, but at the same time I knew it was impossible. I had a job waiting for me (I later discovered it wasn’t), and with presidential mandate about to expire, I had no plans for the ESTIEM future.

And then I thought of the most brilliant plan. A true epilogue for my ESTIEM journey. A deus ex machina.

I will apply for the next year’s PR-CR School. And I did.

Coordinating from BelgradeBy the time this article reaches you, the read-

er, detailed information on PR-CR School 2013 would have surfaced on the Facebook page, in the newsletters, and during the Public Relations and Corporate Relations Committees Reports in Eindhoven. Maybe you have already seen the cool video, heard about the concept, and decided to ap-ply. If not, read along the next few lines and just maybe you will change your mind.

This year’s PR-CR School goes pro. With the-matic days, split trainings, and a complete case study, the event will take the participants from a basic ride to an advanced level understanding and implementing skills for successful fundraising, me-dia promotion, branding and designing, and social media engagement.

The focus of PR-CR School will be on develop-ing a structured approach to PR and CR challenges, with short theory parts, and in-depth workshops and trainings. Photoshop and InDesign trainings will finally see the much needed evolution with the “Design Day” – one whole day dealing with the basics, concepts and advanced features and meth-ods of designing the perfect poster, or a brochure.

With the (possible) introduction of an addition-al day reserved for case study solving, more time per day is left for teambuilding activities, city ex-ploration and nightlife adventures.

See you in…… whichever Local Group the PR-CR School

2013 is going to be organised by. Get ready to learn the secrets of sales and negotiation; the noble craft of designing; the sacred rituals of media rela-tions, community management and public speak-ing; and most importantly, get ready to invest in your professional and personal development in the most awesome way you can possibly do – during an ESTIEM event. n

31 INSIDE ESTIEM

not experienced at all with the business simulation game, but while we were trying to solve it, the problems that we faced and appeared during the competition as a whole group, I enjoyed them a lot and I learnt in a way how to do it.

After the third day, we went to Graz. As far as I learnt, Graz is the second biggest city of Austria and it is a great city. That was the first time that I had been in Austria which I had always dreamt of visiting, so I had a chance to see one of my dreams come true with the help of ESTIEM and I am plan-ning to see the other places by attending further events. Anyway, in Graz we visited a factory which uses pellets, which are small wooded shaped pills, used for heating systems. That was quite interest-ing, because the person who held the presentation said that since wood-chips leave ashes after burn-ing, they prefer to use pellets, which make the air less polluted and this way they also gain more ef-ficient heating energy.

There was a different atmosphere there, the at-mosphere of complementary various cultures and ways to have fun. Actually, not only the events themselves make you feel the enthusiasm of the participants, but also via Skype chats you can feel this mood. We attended seminars, workshops and company visits and learned about the topic which I believe increased the participants’ academic skills and made them gain different perspectives. After that, during nights, we basically had fun at parties and clubs, which helped us improve the communi-cation among us. Apparently, the best thing that describes this situation is the ESTIEM motto “work hard, play hard”. We worked hard during days and we played hard at nights.

To put it simple, this was a great event like all the other events of ESTIEM and in my opinion, each participant needs Vision to see the world again. n

Life sometimes brings some opportunities which change the direction of your choices. My best opportunity was to have a great Local Group Responsible, who helped me see the world differ-ent with the help of ESTIEM. I attended the Vision which was held in Vienna and Graz and which was my first ESTIEM activity. However, the interest-ing thing is that when I saw someone who attended his or her first ESTIEM activity, he or she tries to further get involved in projects or committees. As a result, here is my contribution.

Vision is one of the most successful projects of ESTIEM. The main topic of the event that I attend-ed was “Green Supply Chain”. The idea of “Green Supply Chain” is essential in terms of deciding the future of the world. We need Vision to see the world differently. As all other Vision activities, it was a 6-day long event, but all the days were full of fun and academic contents.

During the first day, I arrived in the middle of the international night. At international evenings, participants bring their own traditional food and drinks to share with the others. By this, they also exchange their cultures. That gives us a chance to try new things from different cultures. For exam-ple, it was the first time that I drank Russian vodka and I had a shot. After the international night, we went back to our hosts’ home to rest in order to be prepared for the next day of the event.

The second day was actually all about increas-ing our knowledge level about the topic. We simply discussed the word “sustainability”. We attended a seminar called “Sustainable Global Logistics”. In the same day we had a workshop titled as “A New Era of Sustainability”. However, even the academic parts were full of fun since we were together. The third day was also like that; we had a business sim-ulation game which was another first time in my life activity. Since I am a freshman student, I was

My “First Event” ExperienceVision Vienna&Graz, December 2012

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tion, offering a full range of academic programmes, including biotechnologies, sciences, economics, en-gineering, education, humanities, medicine, psy-chology, and sport sciences. With 7 departments, the University of L’Aquila offers to over 20,000 enrolled students 69 degree courses (divided be-tween first and second level degrees), 24 research doctorate programs, specialization schools, special-izing-master courses and vocational courses. Many members of its distinguished faculty (of about 600 professors and researchers) have received interna-tional recognition and are considered leaders in their fields of research.

Following the earthquake that occurred on the 6th April 2009, the university offers free tuition in order to maintain the flow of students that are an important part of the community and the town’s economics.

The devastating earthquake tragically took 309 lives, many of which were students. In the after-math of this tragic event our students, academic staff and technical-administrative immediately re-vealed their unyielding determination and pride in reclaiming the mission that they carry out with renowned capability and dedication.

For this same reason we have our will to be-come part of the big family of ESTIEM. We would like to contribute to rebuild our university’s European identity, introducing the ESTIEM “Work hard, play hard” spirit throughout our students. Our engines are fired up and we are ready to go active! n

To begin with, I introduced officially at the Council Meeting in Eindhoven the new guest Local Group of L’Aquila (pronounced Lakwila). To those of you who couldn’t attend the event, here you get an introduction briefing about our Local Group. We really hope you can visit us soon.

Our group was created in September last year and ever since, we are working hard to make it ac-tive. Starting with our first steps, we received the endorsement and the interest of our faculty. After few months, for the Brain Trainer in Madrid, two members applied and they were the first students of our Local Group to officially attend an event.

L’Aquila is a city which is often known as the city devastated by an earthquake in 2009. Despite the recent devastation and ramifications, the city is slowly rebuilding and recovering from its loss. Modern day L’Aquila upholds a successful univer-sity and maintains a rich history and beauty.

The city is situated in the heart of Italy (100 Km from Rome), in the mountainous region of Abruzzo, 721 meters above sea level. It is f lanked on the one side by the Velino and Sirente mountain ranges, on the other by the Laga Mountains and the Gran Sasso range. This makes it one of the coldest cities of the country, and a great place for skiing.

The National Institute of Nuclear Physics built in the 80’s, beside the motorway tunnel, is one of the longest tunnels in Europe (the “Gran Sasso National Laboratory (LNGS)”) and is considered the biggest underground laboratory in the world, where, protected by 1400 metres of rock, research in astrophysics, cosmology, nuclear physics and geophysics is carried out.

The University of L’Aquila was first estab-lished as an academic institution for the region in the XVth century. It was later re-established in 1952 and located in L’Aquila, as the city was the administrative centre of the Abruzzo Region. The University is a public teaching and research institu-

With engines fired up and ready to go active! ESTIEM Local Group L’Aquila

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Studying at the University of St. Gallen, I have the possibility of doing a Masters in International Management with a partner university in Bergen, but being ironically suggested in Norway not to apply for Bergen, I might “reconsider” and go to Trondheim University instead.

Next to the interesting lectures (every single one was brilliant), there were a lot of fun activities and hilarious situations, not only with the group members, but also with the local people. The city game was great to get to know strangers and by doing so, get an impression of the people and their culture.

The fact that every single member of the group got along well with all the others was astonishing. I felt like being part of a big family. It was a homoge-neous team where subgroups did not emerge. The group was just perfect how it was. This gave me the opportunity to socialize with people from all over Europe in a very pleasant atmosphere. The interna-tional night was the peak of intercultural exchange. For me, this was the climax of the whole week.

I’d love to see Norway during summertime, but it’s not the fabulous country that makes me want to go back, it’s the people, their mentality and the great memories I have. This single week in Trondheim made me fall in love with the north of Europe. I want to visit all of Scandinavia and hopefully make similar experiences to the ones in Norway. n

Hi, I’m Sandro from Switzerland and I was one of the lucky participants of the Europe3D event in Norway.

Before this event, I had the common prejudices about Norway: that it is a rich country because of the oil and everything is very expensive. There is a lot of snow and numerous elks running around eve-rywhere. The King is on top of the political system and education is free.

Except for the elk fact, the prejudices con-firmed, but only in specific aspects. Norway re-ally has a lot of oil, but the oil sector doesn’t even contribute to half to the country’s GDP. There’s also the fish and potato industry. The King is only a symbol and the country’s real leaders are the mem-bers of the democratic parliament. This political system proved itself as a very successful and sta-ble organisational form. In addition to the above mentioned, I learnt that the Norwegians are very cordial und fun people and that they preserve their traditions, which I think is great. I would love to be a Viking as well and paint my house in the same red as the Norwegian flag, while mocking the Swedes.

Especially the Nordic youth inspired me. It seemed like everybody I met was involved in some project like for example ISFiT. This commitment motivated me to do something similar in my coun-try after the event.

An interesting fact about Norway was given to me by the professor of the cultural lecture. This fact directly interferes with my future plans.

Europe3D NorwayPeace, oil and brown cheese

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The next step was to perform a detailed anal-ysis of the IEEP being offered by the individual project organisations. To do this effectively re-quired a recognised IEEP model as a reference, so the model prescribed by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) (ref. ILO handbook, Geneva, G. Kanawaty) and used by many univer-sities in Europe and America was selected. This model contained 5 major subject categories; IE Basics, Human Factor Engineering, Operations Research, Manufacturing Systems Engineering and Management Systems. Now the individual subjects on the IEEP’s could be placed in the ILO models subject categories and ECTS points assigned to the subject (1 ECTS = 25 hours). In this way the pro-ject team could evaluate the balance for each pro-gram, e.g. the Irish program was shown to have a much greater percentage of Management Systems subjects then the other programs. However, it was discovered that the ILO Model did not adequate-ly describe the range of subjects being thought by the individual organisations and sosome cat-egories were added: IE Basics was changed to IE Fundamentals, Engineering Basics, Innovation & Technology and Environment/Sustainability were added. The project team now had a clear repre-sentation of the individual programs in the format proscribed by the EU EQF. A weighted average was calculated for all six programs and mapped onto the IESE Model. This model could now be used as a reference program in objective 2.

A questionnaire was created andwas used to survey IE managers about the knowledge and skill sets they would like to see in IE graduates enter-ing the market place. An industry wide survey was carried out in Ireland, Iceland and Netherlands.»

This Industrial Engineering Standards in Europe (IESE) partnership group(Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden, CPD Aalborg, Denmark, University of Iceland, VOAA Industrial Engineering, Netherlands, International Industrial Consult ICC AG, Germany and Institute of Industrial Engineers, Ireland) was selected to provide a good balance between the technical/practical aspects of Industrial Engineering (IE) educational programs provided by Germany and the Netherlands and the scientific expertise pro-vided by the universities in Iceland, Sweden and Denmark. As an independent professional body, the Institute of Industrial Engineers provided a good link between the two groups and represented the views of practicing IE professionals.

The IESE project had 2 primary objectives; first using the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) and the ECTS system as a benchmark standard, the Industrial Engineering Educational Program (IEEP) for each participating country was mapped and analysed against these frameworks. Second, using the results from objective 1, a pro-totype IEEP was developed as a reference for an industrial survey, which would highlight any gaps between the educational programs being offered by the partner countries and the skill/knowledge requirements of industrial managers

The first step was to develop an understanding of the educational systems in operation in each of the partnership countries. At one of the workshops for the project a presentation of the individual na-tional system and how they related to the EQF and ECTS systems was given by each partner. As a re-sult of the ensuing discussions it was decided to develop a ’glossary of terms’ which would take the EQF definitions for general educational terms as the reference and each partner country would pro-vide their national definition of the term. A glos-sary specific to IE terms was also developed. Also at this stage it was decided to use the EQF as the reference framework when describing any educa-tional program as this provided the group with a common language.

Industry needs versus EducationIndustrial Engineering Standards in Europe

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Timothy Byrne

Timothy Byrne is Chairman at the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE) Ireland.

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It could be seen as a law of nature that the Higher Education Institutions (HEI) will always lag behind in fulfilling the actual need of competences in industry but indeed there are a lot of reasons for this gap:

�� Staff members seem to engage candidates with the same professional profile

�� Priority of research is rising

�� ‘Publish or perish’ policy is very strong

�� Changing study regulations and obtaining ac-creditation is very time consuming

In academia is there a tendency to teach only the competences which they are equipped to teach, a comfort zone, and they do not want to move out-side that comfort zone to offer new and innovative subject choices?

The Joint Perspective of Industry and Edu-cation

The results of the survey indicate that there is a gap between the educational programs currently been offered and the requirements of enterprise. This gap needs to be narrowed or eliminated. On step in this direction can be achieved by provid-ing a better match between needs of the industry and the competences offered by education through establishing more continuous dialogue between in-dustry and HEI concerning its requirements. It is often the case that higher education providers with strong teaching capabilities and capacities with-incertain technologies will also have a strong local industry utilising the strength of that research.

A joint venture between enterprise and aca-demia of establishing departments for continuing education at the higher education providers might create the ideal model to provide up-to-date com-petences to meet the needs of industry. In addition to this, a strategic approach needs to be adopted that enables forecasts of these needs and to be a platform of collaboration between teachers and researchers from the higher education providers and the management and engineers from the en-terprises.

While the above strategy would help the evolu-tion of new syllabi the gap analysis also exposes a market for Continuing Professional Development (CDP) in the field of Industrial Engineering. This market could be served by the education provid-ers who could tailor their educational offering to match the enterprise requirements. n

Additions Skills and Education LevelOn analysis of the questionnaires, the results

indicatethat there is a gap between IEEPs and in-dustry needs. Taken together, the results show a degree of variation and suggest thatIEEPswill need to include additional subject categories in order to satisfy industry needs.In order of identified impor-tance these were Communications, Teamwork, Mentoring, Leadership, Finance and Training.

The most obvious finding to emerge is that to make the learning worthwhile for those undertak-ing an IE program and to ensure that IE programs remainvalid; subject matter should be driven by the changes in industry needs.This research will serve as a basis for future studies and can be used to de-velop a Quality Assurance Reference Framework for IE and continuous educational programs.

The Industry PerspectiveIn the current global economy the competition

between manufacturers of products has reached a level which has never been seen before in history. Globalisation of markets has increased tremen-dously leading every company to be very aware of its competences with regard to not only their core activities of manufacturing but also with regard to its positioning in the market and amongst its competitors. Therefore the company will inevita-bly focus on obtaining the skills and competencies that they expect will improve their position in the market. A relevant question that arises is whether the needs for competences stated by the companies in this survey can be seen as the real needs or as a search for the magic wand to maintain a competi-tive advantage. On the other hand one should not neglect these statements from the industry. The driving forces of competition are at least to some extent the renewal of methods and technologies in combination with the skills and competences of the workforce. These forces are moving with a much greater speed than research based development and will therefore indicate the direction for future research of the higher education institutions like universities.

The Perspective of the Education ProvidersHigher Education Institutions serve several pur-

poses to society, research and education being the strongest. Candidates must be educated to obtain skills and competences to maintain the jobs of a modern society on a long-term basis. In the fields of engineering this education will develop continu-ously to match the needs of the industry but will as with all academic educations also target the general qualifications of the professional field.

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Today, lots of digital tools exist that can and are, used for learning. But how to use them in a good way – and a future way for learning: none of us really know how to do this at the moment. We might have ideas and we test a lot. I, like many col-leagues of mine, do a lot a testing at this moment (if interested take a look at “House-of-marketing” at Pinterest for instance). But in-depth: I do really wonder if we seriously know how learning appears today. In that sense, we all still stumble in dark-ness.

We all know a lot about how teaching appears – but I used the word learning, neither teaching nor education, please notice that. To me, educa-tion is the system. Teaching is what I as a teacher do. Learning is what you do. My teaching is only a tool, hopefully a good one, for your learning. All of that is embedded in a system we today often call education – in your case given at an institution we call university.

Your learning is what ought to be focused here – and my teaching should come as a consequence from that (not the other way around).

Well of course Facebook, Google Scholar, You Tube, or whatever, can be used instead of a book. At this moment it is also done, in a rapidly increas-ing manner – by a lot of teachers as well as stu-dents. But why just use a digital device only trying to compete with an already existing physical one?

At this moment, there are a lot of ongoing talks concerning E-learning. Let us have a look of what we can find there. On the surface it is actually nothing new: digital tools have ben around for long. Under the surface, however, I see fundamentally interesting issues cooking. We will even find dyna-mite. I wonder if the fuse will be blown off soon or if (as I prefer) something new and interesting will evolve instead.

Seriously speaking: presenting a message with Prezi is in many ways better than Power Point (which actually is a digital version of plastic films that you, students of today, rarely have seen). Freebooks, Pinterest, Slideshare, Flipboard etc do also have a point. And Twitter, Smartphones, You Tube, Second Life, Tablets, you name it, are inter-esting tools to be working with – if just considered what they can be used for in learning.

E-learning: so what?

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Henrik BlomgrenHenrik Blomgren is an Associate Professor in Industrial Management at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, and guest Professor in China. Executive training, management consultant and different kinds of industrial practice are headlines towards what Mr. Blomgren does. Bridging analytical thinking and business action, preferably in the field of marketing and business development and entrepre-neurship are also subjects of his interest. He is also a patron of ESTIEM and may be contacted at henrik.blomgren@indek.kth.se »

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Neither are all of you aware of what, for in-stance, the Mozilla Foundation Open Badges Project, is about to do when trying to develop a fundamentally new Accreditation system for knowledge. Meaning: substituting your credits and exams with something fundamentally new.

Nor have all of you fully developed the value that actors like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LearnIst etc can give for you when being compared to the networks a university give you.

And by the way: neither have all of us teachers noticed all this.

But my guess is that it is only a question before you will.

In the mean time, while waiting for all this to happen, I myself will continue trying to learn what all of you students really are up to today, trying to understand how your learning processes really look like and experiment with different new kinds of methods. I try everything from new kinds of real life performances to digital devices. What else good can I do?

For hundreds of years, education, in its basic form, has stayed the same. Lots of us teachers, as well as you students, have had the idea of a monop-oly business (and still have). I think that situation gradually is changing. It will not happen overnight. But something important is “cooking down under”. And I am heavily curious trying to understand and develop what it is – and what new item will evolve.

We live in marvellously interesting times. Just imagine how thrilling it is to live in times when one of the most important words to us human be-ings - “learning” - is being re-invented. Let’s join forces in order to increase the effort for our jour-ney into discovering that wor(l)d.

Acting in such a way would be far more inter-esting than waiting for someone to blow the fuse and ignite the digital dynamite underlying todays existing system we all call “education”.n

Why not make something more/different out of it? Then what should that “something more” be?

If just for a second skipping the idea of “learn-ing” as a one-direction-process, from me to you: it is obvious that we can use a lot of digital de-vices and services in order to create learning in a way none of us really is thinking about at this mo-ment. Well, of course new rising terms like “flip-ping classroom”, just to pick one, should not be neglected. There are a lot of interesting things out there cooking at this moment. If teachers would stop teaching and try to be facilitators instead, it would be a radical shift. Still, I wonder how to use IT in order to support life-long-learning, personal development, creating deep networks etc - not only trying to substitute a rather nice already-existing (but old) book?

The fact that you students piracy download our, previous physical, books, spread on notes to each other on Facebook, utilise services like Kahn Academy, Ted, Wikipedia, Learnist instead of go-ing to class ought to tell us something. But what should it tell us, except that the old carriers for learning – books, slides, lectures etc – are as it says: somewhat rather “old” and sometimes even heavily boring?

Not all of you IEM-students have yet noticed the rather good free online courses that you at this second can take from for instance Harvard, MIT, Stanford or Berekely (notice: it is open and free to anyone. Just recently launched). You are not likely, yet, fully aware of what ventures like EdX, Open University, Coursera, iTunesU, Peter Thiel-Scholarship, Phoneix-Online, House Of

Marketing, Udacity, Y Combinator can do for you – even though they are not, yet, “real tradi-

tional universities”. Meaning that you already, today, have an option of

comparing several really good different suppliers for what

you are looking for when starting at your uni-

versity (but not fully yet).

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Green Supply ChainAn Environmental Approach to Today’s Industry

39FOCUS

Green supply chain management describes the holistic transformation of strategies, structures, processes and systems within the company and across networks of companies to create environ-mentally responsible and resource efficient supply chain processes. That means that we are looking at the entire supply chain: real estate and trans-port, internal and external logistics and planning and strategy. The goal is, to convert supply chains ecologically to reduce environmental pollution in the future.

To act more ecologically, changes concerning transport should be carried out. This could be:�� The use of energy efficient vehicles �� Training of drivers concerning resource effi-

cient driving�� Usage of telematics for steering the truck fleet�� Reduction of express services�� Aerodynamic modifications of truck fleet�� Usage of hybrid trucks�� Shifting of parcels towards railway or inland

water vessel�� Outsourcing�� Routing of vehicles on their way to the loading

point(s)�� Usage of the entire shipping volume of the ve-

hicle

Concerning the internal logistics, the means

of transport and conveyors could be improved for more efficient and more successful usage. This does include in addition improvements concerning the packaging.

Planning a new building should ensure that the resources needed to utilize the building are perfectly balanced. This could be the usage of re-newable energies just as sun, water or biomass. In addition, soil sealing could be reduced, as well as the emissions of noise and dust for the inbound and outbound traffic. A holistic approach could fur-thermore include shared parking decks, canteens and connectivity to public transport.

The strategy of a company, as well as all plan-ning processes, heavily inf luences me with much management. The design of the company’s network, location planning and all sourcing deci-sions have an impact on the green supply chain. The deceleration of supply chains or, e.g., collabo-rative transports, could improve companies’ green footprint.

The total cost of the ownership approach gets a new perspective: not only all kind of purchasing costs have to be considered, but in addition green aspects do count: how green is the supplier and how green is the transport?

Green Supply ChainConverting Supply Chains for the Environment

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Does green supply chain management reduce costs?Current ly, green supply cha in manage-

ment seems to be driven by image reasons. According to a survey of German Bundesverband Materialwirtschaft, Einkauf und Logistik e.V. (BME) 81% of the companies want to increase their investment into environmental protection measures. Furthermore, industry wants to use green logistic certificates for their products or ser-vices (e.g. GoGreen of DHL). The big challenge for the companies is, to use green aspects for re-structuring their truck fleet towards resource effi-ciency. The companies want to use this investment not just to transport the goods but to do it more efficient in the near future.

Does green supply chain management help in com-petition?

Service providers with a special engagement for the environment are more accepted by their cus-tomers. 89% of the customers are not willing to pay a higher price – but would prefer the green company. Just 6% of the customers would pay a higher price for the green company. In addition, more and more companies ask for green logistic approaches in bidding procedures.

How can a green supply chain be measured?The Green Supply chain is linked to the con-

sumption of CO2. The calculation of CO2 data for

a company is still a challenge. For plenty of com-panies, CO2 emissions are still missing and every single company has to be considered separately. A lot of models for calculating the emissions in logistics have a strong focus on transport logis-tics process e.g. TREMOVE: this is a simulation model for transport and emissions, developed for the European commission. The model estimates the demand for transport, the modal share and the emissions of air pollutants. This model can be used for strategic analyses of cost and effects of meas-ures.

Which use does the environment get from a green supply chain?

The goal of every single company is to earn money. To invest into any kind of technology with-out getting a return does not cover the goals of the company. But the companies do invest into green technology due to the pressure of their customers or the society. In general, cost factors also play a role just as the costs for raw material and energy are increasing. With the introducing of CO2 cer-tificates, they form the company to develop new methods for cost-saving. This facilitates technical improvements and, in the end, helps the environ-ment. n

Prof. Dr. Kai-Oliver Schocke Dr. Kai-Oliver Schocke is a professor at the University of Applied Sciences in Frankfurt, Germany. He co-founded ESTIEM Alumni and was their first president.

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The living organism EarthAccording to a theory of the 70’s, our planet

is a living organism, a self-regulating and a „self-aware“-system. In the 21st century, this idea has been revived by the Gaia hypothesis, which doesn t́ exactly claim that the Earth is alive, but that the living organisms are linked together to a system that keeps the life conditions. [1]

Observing the stability of temperature and ocean salinity, the weather and season cycles, it is obvious that the earth is a self-regulating system, but at the other side of the interval, one can see the effects of the environmental pollution, when contaminants are introduced into a natural envi-ronment.

Pollution and its effectsForms of pollution: air and odor pollution, soil

pollution, thermal pollution, noise pollution, wa-ter pollution, even visual and plastic pollution – coming both from natural and man-made sources. Pollution is not always the result of human action, but of the natural disasters: hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis or ac-cidental oil spilling from tankers, combined car-riers and barges. Regarding the oil spilling, the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation Limited (ITOPF) maintains a database on acciden-tal spillages since 1967, except those resulting from acts of war. [2]

Pollution is mainly the result of waste created by an industrialized society. The waste products come from consumption, manufacturing, heating, agriculture, mining, fuel extraction, transpor-tation and human activity and without a form of control, they degrade the environment.

In the developed countries efforts are nowadays being made to minimize waste, instead to control the pollution once it has occurred. Awareness of the effects of pollution has led to stricter regula-tions with respect to automobile, shipping and in-dustrial emissions, although global warming and greenhouse gas show their negative effects.

One of the effects of the release of these gases into the atmosphere is that they cause an increase in carbon dioxide in the oceans. Coral reefs perish and other creatures that rely on the reefs for food also die and lead to the destruction of entire eco-systems. Another effect is the melting of glaciers and ice caps, which seriously affect coastal ecosys-tems. One more effect is when sulfur dioxide from factory emissions mixes causes acid rain, adding to the destruction of the rainforests. Plastic pollution is also a serious issue in some of the world’s oceans, where plastic waste cumulates together forming large garbage patches.

Between the poetic picture and the apocalyptic future of mankind, there are some actions to im-prove the relationship between earth and industry as the main source of products, profits and pollu-tion.

Supply ChainSupply Chain is the movement of materials as

they f low from their source to the end customer and includes purchasing, manufacturing, ware-housing, transportation, customer service, demand planning, supply planning and supply chain man-agement. It is made up of the people, activities, information and resources involved in moving a product from its supplier to customer. [4]

Green Supply ChainA win-win relationship

Fig 1. Supply Chain

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Over time, different types of supply chains emerged according to market influence, consumer demand and technology development. Based on product type and life cycle stage, supply chains evolved from Standard, to Innovative, Hybrid and Green. [5]

Historically, supply chain focus had been on cost, waste and environmental consequences. Government environmental regulations have changed considerably, resulting in the need for manufacturers to regard not only adverse impacts of processes (taxes, penalties), but also the financial and social benefits of reusing and recycling prod-uct components [6]. Over the past 15 years, the concept of closed-loop supply chains has emerged, reflecting the profit recovery of value-added com-ponents, product reuse, and business opportunities in recycling. [7]

Green Supply Chain“The Green Supply Chain is an approach which

seeks to minimize a product or service’s ecological footprint”. [8]

Why are companies going green?In the 2008 published Survey Report in the

Supply Chain Monitor, the over 600 asked profes-sionals about the main drivers for introducing a Green Supply Chain strategy, „22% answered be-cause they wanted to be in compliance with today’s and anticipated future regulations, 19% responded in order to improve the Brand’s image by reacting on consumer expectations, 15% were motivated by the innovation generating effect of the differ-ent Green Supply Chain approaches and 13% were pushed by the cost-reducing effects of the resulting process optimisation“.

Greening supply chain by green purchasing In the free market system, the demand side has

the highest inf luence on the supply side. When large purchasers demand environmental quality and environmentally sound management of sup-pliers as well as high quality, low cost, and short delivery time of goods and services, suppliers have to change their policies and behavior in order to not lose business opportunities. Green purchasing is a market-oriented tool used by the demand side to promote the development of environmentally

conscious products and services, and to make the supply chain “green”. It is also an effective measure to reduce energy consumption at the production stage and as well as to minimize waste generation at the disposal stage.

Functions involved in the Green Supply Chain

Green Design. According to the “German Environment Agency”, 80% of a product’s envi-ronmental impact is determined during the design phase. “Almost 70% of companies that have adopt-ed a green design approach believe they have made their products easier to recycle.”

Green Sourcing. The concept of green sourc-ing encompasses from suppliers, subcontractors, service providers etc. which incorporates envi-ronmental criteria, which can be applied to all the phases of a sourcing process, but mainly come when defining needs.

Green manufacturing. Two different ap-proaches are essential: �� Better consumption: reducing harmful emis-

sions, the consumption of toxic products and the production of waste (concept: less polluting production).�� Lower consumption: reducing consumption of

energy and raw materials, reducing waste (con-sumables).

Green Logistics. Transport is an important activity, in Europe and globally. The growth of

Fig. 2. Delimiting the Green Supply Chain

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international trade is connected to the growth in global industrial production. That is the reason why optimizing transport using less polluting modes of transport such as rail or waterways is a priority, both in terms of financial pressures (e.g. rise of the oil price) and environmental (green-house gas emissions).

Reverse Logistics. The reverse logistics pro-cess ensures that products/materials are returned from the user to the producer in order to be recy-cled, reused or reconditioned.

Reverse logistics is a set of planning, execution and f low control measures for raw materials and finished products, with the aim of recovering and recycling those products or materials. Logistics in-volves activities like collection, sorting, processing and reconditioning. Returns management contains: returns at the end of a product’s life, commercial returns (leasing, mail order, B2C), contractual re-turns (newspapers, publishers), returns under war-ranty (faulty goods), production waste and scraps, and “functional” returns, such as containers, pack-aging.

Nowadays, however, the growth in reverse lo-gistics is due to other factors:

�� Increasing regulation concerning the environ-ment (e.g. the WEEE directive which obliges manufacturers of electronic and electrical equipment to recover their products).

�� Tough competition, forcing manufacturers to take account of customer expectations by of-fering the option to return faulty, unsatisfactory or old products.

�� The possibility of recovering these products in order to reuse them or use the materials, there-by making savings.

ConclusionsThe globalization and international partnerships

of all actors on the market and in society are neces-sary in order to reduce waste and keep the Earth clean. Government policies, non-profit organiza-tions and companies can work globally and make a win-win relationship. n

Fig. 3. Reverse logistics process

(example: product recycling)

REFERENCES:

[1] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/[2] http://www.itopf.com/information-services/data-and-statistics/statistics/ [3] http://www.earthtimes.org/encyclopaedia/environmental-issues/pollution/ [4] http://www.supplychaindefinitions.com/ [5] Nelson, D. M., Marsillac, E., Rao, S. S.: Antecedents and Evolution of the Green Supply Chain[6] Curkovic & Sroufe, 2011; Gavronski et al, 2008[7] Guide & Van Wassenhove, 2009[8] 2008 Supply Chain Monitor[9] Hiroyuki Sato – Linking Green Supply Chain and Green Procurement

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How to define “(Green) Supply Chain Management”?

“Green supply chain management” is a complex term that still lacks a holistic definition. As the green supply chain management concept is based on both supply chain management as well as environ-ment (and sustainability) management literature, the core of what this concept implies lies some-where in between. Consequently, a one-fits-all definition is not only impossible but also useless as a definition always depends on the scope of the re-searcher or the manager’s responsibilities. The un-derstanding of green supply chain management in literature has therefore ranged from “greening the purchasing function” to an “integrated green sup-ply chain flowing from supplier to manufacturer to customer” [8]. Srivastava [2] supports a holistic ap-proach to what green supply chain management is or even should be. He defines it as “[…] integrating environmental thinking into supply-chain manage-ment, including product design, material sourcing and selection, manufacturing processes, delivery of the final product to the consumers as well as end-of-life management of the product after its useful life […]”.This definition leaves enough room for managers in various industries to take their indi-vidual requirements into account.

Design characteristics of green supply chains

A “green” management system in companies should be designed in such a way as to prevent solid and hazardous waste, to optimize natural resource use, to avoid water and air pollution, to meet policy challenges and to respond to the environmental legislation already in the product design as well as in the purchasing and supply management

AbstractGreen Supply Chain Management has gained

increasing attention among researchers and prac-titioners over the last years. At present, it is very popular for firms to demonstrate their sincere commitment to a “green economy” and to con-vince customers of being a “green supplier”. For this purpose, companies have to manage the chal-lenges of globalization and to adapt progressively to new “green” requirements of international business by re-designing their supply chains. “Greening” the different phases of the supply chain not only leads to an integrated green supply chain but ultimately also to competitive advantage and economic per-formance [1]. This article presents a holistic ap-proach of green supply chain management and a short overview of the main challenges for designing a green supply chain.

New “green” management challenges in supply chains

The increasing deterioration of the environ-ment especially by scarce raw resources and over-f lowing garbage dumps is the main driving fac-tor of so-called green supply chain management. Additionally, regulatory as well as corporate social responsibility requirements and customer pressure are driving firms to establish green supply chains. The focus of green supply chain management in practice ranges from sustainability management initiatives to more proactive practices implemented through, for example, reverse logistics. There is a wide range of literature about various aspects of green supply chain management [2]: green design [3], green manufacturing [4], reverse logistics [5], production planning and control for remanufactur-ing [6] and logistics network design [7].

New Management Challenges for Supply Chains are Green

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processes. Therefore, the main challenge of green supply chain management systems is to move from only focusing on the operational perspective of pollution prevention and risk management

towards more holistic approaches such as life cycle management, industrial ecology, to sustainability and corporate social responsibility as illustrated in Table 1 [9]. n

LITERATURE CITED

[1] Rao, P., Holt, D. (2005). Do green supply chains lead to competitiveness and economic perfor-mance?. International journal of Operations & Production Management, 25(9), pp. 898 – 916.[2] Srivastava, S.K. (2007). Green supply-chain management: A state-of-the-art literature review. International journal of Management Reviews, 9(1), pp. 53 – 80.[3] Zhang, H.C., Kuo, T.C., Lu, H., Huang, S.H. (1997). Environmentally conscious design and manu-facturing: a state-of-the-art survey. journal of Manufacturing Systems, 16, pp. 352 – 371.[4] Gungor, A., Gupta, S.M. (1999). Issues in environmentally conscious manufacturing and product recovery: a survey. Computers & Industrial Engineering, 36, pp. 811 – 853.[5] Carter, C.R., Ellram, L.M. (1998). Reverse logistics: a review of the literature and framework for future investigation. journal of Business Logistics, 19, pp. 85 – 102.[6] Guide, V.D.R. (2000). Production planning and control for remanufacturing: industry practice and research needs. journal of Operations Management, 18, pp. 467 – 483.[7] jayaraman, V., Patterson, R.A., Rolland, E. (2003). The design of reverse distribution networks: models and solution procedures. European journal of Operational Research, 150, pp. 128 – 149.[8] Zhu, Q., Sarkis, j. (2004). Relationships between operational practices and performance among early adopters of green supply chain management practices in Chinese manufacturing enterprises. journal of Operations Management, 22, pp. 265 – 289.[9] Beamon, B. M. (1999). Designing the green supply chain. Logistics Information Management, 12(4), pp. 332 – 342.[10] Commission of the European Communities (2001). Green paper: Promoting a European frame-work for Corporate Social Responsibility, Brussels, 18.7.2001, COM (2001) 366 final.

Stage of policy Primary design characteristics of green supply chains Years (estimated)

Risk management Pollution and waste management 1970s to mid 1980s

Pollution prevention Process improvement to reduce material use, minimize waste, and improve efficiency of e. g. production processes

Mid 1980s to early 1990s

Life cycle management Focus on life cycle environmental effects of products and pro-cesses

Late 1980s/early 1990s and ongoing

Industrial ecologySystematic process and product management to maximize eco-nomic performance, competitive advantage and to ensure envi-ronmental quality.

Early/Mid 1990s and ongoing

Sustainability / corpo-rate social responsibil-ity

Firms and their management processes should “[…] contribute to social and environmental objectives, through integrating cor-porate social responsibility as a strategic investment into their core business strategy, their management instruments and their operations.” [10]

Mid/Late 1990s and ongoing

Table 1: Primary design characteristics of green supply chains and its evolution [9, extended]

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This is one of the founding principles of the “Blue Economy”, which was developed by Gunter Pauli, a serial entrepreneur and famous lecturer. Former CEO of ECOVER, a Belgian company that manufactures ecological cleaning products made from biodegradable vegetal and mineral in-gredients, he recently created the Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives (ZERI) foundation. His scope of initiatives spans business, culture, science and education.

His rationale is the following: Today the global society faces challenging environmental problems and at the same time, it needs to cope with a per-sistent economic crisis. In this complex situation, it is hard to develop efficient solutions and invest in green technologies. That is why Gunter Pauli invites us to re-think our business models and pro-poses us simple solutions, inspired from natural cycles and processes, to face global challenges.

According to the Blue Economy concept, it is possible to satisfy the needs of everybody with the available resources, based on the model of how nature itself works: producing energy and food, recycling waste, answering everyone’s needs and getting regenerated constantly through cycles. It is a model in which creativity and adaptability take part. All in all, this is a non-polluting economy that we should take as a model, since it creates employ-ment, social cohesion and even value.

How does it work concretely? Let’s take an ex-ample: each year, the American economy spends thousands of billions of dollars to collect, sort and treat waste. Basing on natural eco-systems, we could do so much better, because waste can be a source of incomes rather than losses. We can cite the example of coffee waste. Have you ever won-dered how much coffee from the farm actually ends

up in your cup in the morning? From the biomass harvested at the farm in Colombia or Zimbabwe, only 0.2 % is ingested, the rest is simply left to rot. The Chinese scientist Shuting Chang demon-strated in his lab in Hong Kong that coffee serves as an ideal substrate for farming tropical mushrooms like shiitake or ganoderma. Chido Govero set up her own business of mushroom farming on cof-fee waste, and thus generates food and job secu-rity in Africa. In 2009, a couple of graduates from Berkeley University started a business collecting the coffee waste from the coffee shops to grow mushrooms in the inner city, providing competi-tive and high quality food while generating jobs. Wherever in the world people farm or drink cof-fee, in the city or countryside, waste can be con-verted to protein. This example could be general-ized to a broader approach that would consist in re-thinking business models, re-designing product life cycles which would therefore have a direct im-pact on supply chains.

Gunter Pauli is going further. Nature is always trying to do more with as few energy as possible, using a chemical and physical equilibrium. There is still so much to learn about it in terms of technical innovations and design. Have you ever wondered why zebras have stripes? Is it only to look pretty? Not really, stripes play a complex role in terms of thermic regulation and natural air-conditioning. With massive innovations and creativity, it would be possible to adapt such properties to insulation of buildings. In the same way, we could learn from termite nests, whose conception enables to natu-rally regulate pressures and temperatures inside.

Solutions in terms of energy can also be elaborated. How can natural systems produce elec-tricity every day? That is not thanks to the sun as we generally believe. This is thanks to gravity and

From Green Supply Chain to Blue Economy

« The time has come to go beyond the green economy, where renewable energy cannot compete without

subsidies, and whatever is good for our health and the environment costs more. »

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bio-chemistry. Natural systems do not use piles or metals. For instance, our mobile phone could work without battery, just thanks to the natural connec-tivity to our body and to the pressure of our voice.

We could cite so much more current projects from the hundreds of propositions gathered by Gunter Pauli in his book “The blue economy”. Some of them are Las Gaviotas, a project of forest regeneration in Colombia or El Hierro, a Spanish island that became self-sufficient. Gunter Pauli proposes to face an ambitious challenge: Create 100 millions of jobs, in 10 years with 100 inno-vations. Indeed, he wants the Blue Economy not

SOURCES:

[1] http://downtoearth.danone.com/2013/01/15/gunter-pauli-blue-is-the-new-green/[2] http://www.internetactu.net/2009/06/29/gunter-pauli-il-ne-faut-pas-polluer-moins-il-faut-arreter-de-polluer/[3] http://www.liberation.fr/economie/2012/12/16/gunter-pauli-suivre-la-sagesse-de-la-nature_868007[4] http://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/community/gunter-pauli-bhutan-and-the-blue-economy[5] http://www.blueeconomy.de[6] http://www.zeri.org

only to provide environmental friendly solutions, but also profitable ones. This would in turn reduce our dependence on heavy public subsidies and con-tribute to the economic recovery.

So what do we need in order to make a sustain-able equilibrium succeed? First, we need to believe it is possible. Get involved in a creative learning session, in order to get inspired from natural sys-tems. We need a massive innovation with new business models. In this way, Gunter Pauli aims at inspiring and encouraging entrepreneurs to launch innovative ideas for our future. Find more informa-tion on zeri.org. n

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Summary The Sustainable Supply Chain concept is be-

coming part of our lives and is now a reality for companies. In the scale, companies try to balance new and existent regulations, possibly new invest-ments and higher operational costs, so as to achieve competitive advantages, under this new paradigm that adds additional challenges to the traditional supply chain management. However, the underly-ing concepts are still very unclear and directions and strategies for managing such systems are only recently appearing either within the academic and the business communities.

In this article we brief ly analyze the status of this topic, coping with both aforementioned en-vironments’ visions. We also present some of the contributes of our research group – Operations and Logistics Research Group, based at the Centre of Management Studies of Instituto Superior Técnico at the Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal.

IntroductionTraditionally, supply chains have been seen as

complex systems responsible for the production and distribution of products to different markets geo-graphically disperse around the globe, where the main aim has been the one of guaranteeing costum-ers satisfaction at a minimum cost. Such paradigm is however changing caused by an increasing society pressure towards the minimization environmental impacts and improvement of population’s quality of life. The concept of sustainable supply chains is now emerging (Barbosa-Póvoa, 2009) and supply chains need to be defined as operational structures that manage raw materials and services from sup-pliers to manufacturers/service providers and back, with the aim of guaranteeing costumers satisfaction while contributing also positively to society and to the environment. Sustainable supply chains need to be seen as an extended supply chain, where the different supply chains activities need to be con-sidered in an integrated way under the context of a set of constraints caused by the natural resources availability and regulations amongst others, while considering the costumers and society behavior.

So how are Supply Chain Managers reacting to these new paradigms and concepts? How can a company classify its response towards this new way of defining their supply chains structures? What is the Status Quo of the development under either the academic and business contexts?

We aim to brief ly address these topics in the next sections.

Concepts everywhere: from definitions to new paradigms for Supply Chain Management

Sustainability was clearly defined back in 1987, in the well known Brundtland Report, provided by the United Nations. At the date, sustainable de-velopment was defined as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. From this date, this new paradigm started to be gradually present in our lives, either in our personal life or in our business. In 1994, a new vi-sion for the full cost of doing business was defined by John Elkington (founder of SustainAbility con-sultancy) the Triple Bottom Line. Here not only ‘Profit matters’, but ‘People’ and ‘Planet’ as well. With this new motto, hidden costs started to mat-ter for consumers, such as child labor, indiscrimi-nate use of forest resources or excessive use of hy-drocarbons (The Economist, 2009).

Towards Sustainable Supply Chains: Profitable, Green and Socially Responsible

Figure 1:Extended Supp ly Chains

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From this new vision, several new concepts started to appear, from which we highlight three: green, reverse and social responsible supply chains. These concepts are somewhat misunderstood by people in general, because they are separate top-ics, with some intersection. As stated by Srivastava (2007), Green Supply Chain Management aims to “integrate environmental thinking in Supply Chain Management, including product design, material sourcing and selection, manufacturing processes, delivery of final product and end-of-life products management”. On the other hand, reverse applies to the “process of planning, implementing and controlling the efficient, cost effective flow of raw materials, in-process inventory, finished goods and related information from the point of consumption to the point of origin for the purpose of recaptur-ing value or proper disposal” (Grant et al., 2006). When talking about social responsible supply chains a clear definition is still in its infancy, al-though one can state that being socially responsible implies the establishment of a close link between the development of the processes and structures aiming to create positive impacts in human capi-tal (employees, customers and other stakeholders). This goes beyond a particular organization and af-fects positively the community/ society (Hauschild et al, 2008).

Benchmarking for Sustainability: is my company better than yours?

Different forms of company classification un-der the subject of sustainability have been ap-pearing, where one can nominate the surge of a company ranking trough an index classification. This is the case of the well know “The Dow Jones Sustainability World Index”, which tries to clas-sify sustainability companies behavior since 1999. This index provides a benchmarking for compa-nies to compare themselves with the “best in class”

in their sector, providing guidance for improve-ment. In fact, as reported in the “Global Supply Chain Survey 2013” prepared by Pricewaterhouse Cooppers (PwC), sustainability is within the six key interests of the surveyed companies. Respondents report investments in reducing CO2 emissions and collaboration within the chain so as to widespread ethical standards. Sustainability is seen as a hot trend for the supply chains of the fu-ture. However, the driving force is still the poten-tial cost reduction benefits or regulatory require-ments to be met.

With such new trends for supply chains, it is mandatory to understand the underlying concepts of sustainability, green and related concepts.

Roadmap for Sustainable Supply Chains: closing the gap between Universities and Companies

The Academic community has increased his focus on the sustainable supply chains. The num-ber of publications regarding sustainable supply chains between 1994 and 2012 has steadily grown (Hassini et al., 2012). However the turning point where the academic interest starts rapidly to grow is between 2007 and 2008, which shows that the awareness of this issue is quite recent.

The academic interest is intimately related to the companies’ interest. Companies are mainly showing their interest in this field through their sustainability reports. Carvalho & Barbosa-Póvoa (2011), analysed a series of sustainability reports which led to results that pointed out for a grow-ing concern of organizations to embrace sustainable practices and consequently to report their sustain-able measures to improve the sustainability of the supply chain.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

ANA PAULA BARBOSA-PóVOA obtained her PhD in Engineering from Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine, London, UK. She is currently a Full Professor of Operations and Logistics at the Department of Management and Engineering of Instituto Superior Técnico, Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal where she is the director of the BSc and Master Programs in Engineering and Management.. Ana’s research interests are on the supply chain management, where both

forward and reserve structures are included and on the design, planning and scheduling of flexible systems where sustainability is a main topic. Ana has published widely in these areas and supervised several Master and PhD stu-dents and has been developing several research projects in closed interaction with companies.

SUSANA RELVAS is an Assistant Professor at the Engineering and Management de-partment of Instituto Superior Técnico, Technical University of Lisbon. She ob-tained her PhD in 2008 in IEM from IST. Her research interests are in Supply Chain Management, namely in the Oil Supply Chain, Biofuels Supply Chain, Risk and Resilience Management as well as Green Operations. She has developed research initiatives with Portuguese companies for Greener Operations.

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It is in this context that is extremely important to join academic and companies efforts, in order to have a clear definition on sustainable supply chains and how can these complex structures be managed and assessed.

Sustainable Supply Chains by the Operations and Logistics Group @ Instituto Superior Técnico: what are we doing?

The Operat ions and Logist ics Research Group is the research branch of the Centre for Management Studies of Instituto Superior Técnico for Operations Management and Logistics. This group has the leadership of Ana Paula Barbosa-Póvoa and involves nowadays three more senior re-searchers (the remaining authors), 16 PhD students and several MsC Students. The group has academic and business collaborations, both national and in-ternational.

In particular in the area of sustainable supply chains the group has been developing several pro-jects that aim to contribute towards the under-standing of what are sustainable supply chains and how to build and manage such systems. Some key research ideas are:

�� Conceptualization of what are sustainable sup-ply chains, exploring supply chains as integra-tive and interactive systems that extend the economic focus and embed society and nature concerns;

�� Understanding of the societal component of sustainability, namely on how to translate such aspect into adequate and reliable indicators that companies can easily use and manage;

�� Developing sustainable supply chain structures using multidisciplinary approaches for the de-sign, planning and operation of global sustain-able supply chains. These approaches are based on optimization methods incorporating both environmental and societal analysis method-ologies.

The mentioned projects are being developed in close interaction with companies acting in sev-eral industrial sectors such as oil, pharmaceutical, distribution and waste collection, amongst others. As project examples we can name the definition of a WEEE collection supply chain structure and associated planning; the restructuring of a lead bat-tery closed-loop supply chain considering impact and social impacts; the support of the planning and scheduling of a pharmaceutical supply chain with reverse flows; and finally the planning and schedul-ing optimization of an oil pipeline network.

ConclusionsSustainable Supply Chain is a new paradigm for

companies, since in the near future it will provide competitive advantage. Managers will move from a “wait and see” position to a new position where new strategies and managing trends will appear and clear benefits from this paradigm will appear. Nevertheless, clear indications must be provided either from Governments or from the Academic population, so as to invest in the right decision variables. This new paradigm will require global coordination so as to banish the era of hidden costs.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

TâNIA PINTO VARELA is an Assistant Professor in Engineering and Management Department, in Instituto Superior Técnico, Technical University of Lisbon, since 2011. She holds a PhD in Engineering and Management. Her research interests are in Process Systems Engineering, more specifically: mixed integer optimization, process integration and design and planning supply chain network, consider-ing not only economic but also environmental aspect.

ANA ISABEL CARVALHO obtained her PhD in Chemical Engineering in 2009 from the Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal. She is currently an invited Assistant Professor at Instituto Superior Técnico and a researcher at the Centre for Management Studies of IST (CEG-IST). Her main research activities have been related to sustainability of chemical pro-cesses and supply chains. She has been involved in numerous projects with national and inter-national companies.

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Environmentally Friendly Supply Chains

As concluding remark we launch a challenge for EST I EMers and future I ndust r ia l and Management Engineers, which is to pursue the highest sustainable standards in their professional

REFERENCESA. Carvalho, A.P. Barbosa-Póvoa, (2011), “Social Indicators for Supply Chain Analysis”. Proceedings do 18th EUROMA

Conference, CD-ROM Edition.

A.P. Barbosa-Póvoa (2009) “Sustainable Supply Chains: Key Challenges”. Computer Aided Chemical Engineering: Vol.27,

pp.127-132.

D.B. Grant, D.M. Lambert, j.R. Stock, L.M. Ellram, Fundamentals of Logistics Management – European Edition, McGraw-

Hill (2006);

E. Hassini, C. Surti, C. Searcy (2012) “A literature review and a case study of sustainable supply chains with a focus on

metrics”. International journal of Production Economics: Vol.140, Issue 1, pp 69–82

M.Z. Hauschild, Dreyer, L.C., jørgensen, A. (2008) “Assessing social impacts in a life cycle perspective - Lessons learned”.

CIRP Annals - Manufacturing Technology: Vol.57, pp.21–24.

S.K. Srivastava, Green-Supply Chain management: A state-of-the-art literature review, Int. journal of Management Reviews,

2007, vol 9, Issue 1, pp-53-80;

The Economist, Triple bottom line - It consists of three Ps: profit, people and planet, Nov 17th 2009;

United Nations, Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development - Our Common Future (1987);

Worldwide interest in environmental protec-tion and acquisition of environmentally friendly (“green”) products is becoming more and more popular. At the state level, a number of countries, efforts continue to develop the most common legal framework designed to protect the environment. Manufacturers understand how important it is to ensure the availability of environmentally friendly products on store shelves. To do this, they begin to use the so-called “green” practices.

This concept is based on a sustainable approach to the development of society, which is based on several components, the idea of implementing the requirements of modern society without compro-mising the ability of future generations.

When implementing this approach, businesses have much to rebuild an existing in-plant system and its functions. Necessary to carry out the so-called “green” logistics re-engineering, which has a strong impact on the company’s supply chains. The reason is that the concept of SCM includes all the functions of the corporation and is aimed at optimizing the

management of all material flows, funds and infor-mation between the various departments and agen-cies that are engaged in the production of goods and services and bring them to the end users.

Despite the fact that in the past to predict and calculate the total cost of logistics in the supply chain have been designed with clear and transpar-ent methodology, managers need to consider to-day are completely different and sometimes unex-pected issues in supply chain management. One of the most important is the current “green factor”, which has become very important in recent years and forced enterprises to pay more attention to its logistics activities. It is expressed, for example, that it became possible to reduce disposal costs by creating programs using reusable containers when working with suppliers to implement the so-called the initiative “zero waste”, which allows you to save different types of raw materials, fuel and other re-sources. Through programs for renewable energy, companies are able to reduce energy consumption by 30% within a few years.

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positions and contribute for new and competitive practices towards the attainment of Sustainable Supply Chains. n

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The concept of “green supply chain” has evolved from a necessary condition for the implementation of the enterprise into a means of creating value. Traditionally, companies have implemented “green” projects solely because of cost reductions to en-sure compliance requirements for maintaining the health of consumers and the environment, as well as to minimize the risk of damage to nature. In countries with a strong and formed a value-added product, the implementation of environmental ini-tiatives in the supply chain enables companies to increase productivity, improve relationships with customers and suppliers, to support innovation and growth. “Green” supply chains are no longer the only environmental issue, they increase the efficiency of business processes and reduce costs. Supply chains are increasingly becoming a key fo-cus of the restructuring of organizations in order to reduce negative impacts on the environment. At the top of the list of “green” initiatives in supply chain management efficiency goes transport logis-tics systems, selection of raw materials and packag-ing materials.

However, despite the great potential for suc-cess, most of the leaders in the field of supply chain management is still not paying attention to the use of environmental technologies in their operations. Typical of any supply chain are the following pro-cesses and functions that support the complete cy-cle of material flows, each of which has a profound impact on the environment:

1) P u rcha s i ng a nd i nbou nd log i s t ic s. Procurement function includes the purchase of materials from suppliers to meet the company’s needs for material resources in the production of products or services. Such elements of the procure-ment system, as vendor selection, material selec-tion, outsourcing, etc. can have a profound impact on the environment. For example, the purchase of recycled materials from a source located at a great distance from its processing and use, working with suppliers or warehouses of toxic materials.

This becomes particularly important when a company is going to use the delivery system for Just-In-Time (JIT), in order to reduce storage costs, reduce fuel consumption, downtime in traf-fic jams on the roads. Among others in the devel-

opment of logistics supply the technique of select-ing a transport operator, that is, the provider of transportation services. Transportation is a key logistics processes for all industries. For example, large companies prefer to have long-established links with bona fide carriers as a reliable partner for transport of chemicals, because of this error when transporting dangerous goods will inevitably lead to significant damage to the environment.

2) Manufacturing. In this area address issues such as product development, staff development, quality control, etc. Most often, companies are faced with the problem of corporate responsibility and risk for solving technically and technologically complex production issues that may affect the envi-ronmental safety. Such quality control, which is al-ready included in the work of almost all businesses can reduce the negative effects on the environment. These issues are of critical importance because of the need the participation of all employees in the fight against environmental pollution in the indus-trial sector. Issues such as the removal, recovery and recycling of materials are also important.

3) The distribution and outbound logistics. While purchasing and supply logistics focus on supplier management and organization relation-ships in the supply chain, distribution and logistics functions marketing designed to address the inter-action in the system “, the contracting authority.” Clients’ interests, related to the acquisition of en-vironmentally friendly products impose additional requirements for the operation of companies that are going to be “green.” There is no difference where to begin Enterprises: economic benefits in the development of “green” supply chains, or to think about the environment. Are interrelated and interdependent processes.

4) Return (reverse) logistics. The return logis-tics includes the return of materials, components and products back to the top of the supply chain. Reverse logistics operations consist of the follow-ing basic steps: collection, separation, compaction, demolition, intermediate processing, delivery and storage of material resources. The features of this process depend on the type of materials and com-ponents, which form a reverse flow in the reverse logistics. For example, disassembly will be needed »

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in the organization of the return of copiers, while plastic bottles require pressing. The return logistics has a significant impact on the environment. For example, going to work with a supplier that uses plastic packaging will contribute to the negative ef-fects on the environment.

One way or another each corporation as a whole has an effect on the environment, which is expressed in some form of implicit costs, which are called “environmental costs”. Although the tradi-tional way of taking into account the costs are not taken into account.

In particular, the direct costs (raw materials, wages) directly attributable to the conformity of a product or service, indirect costs (costs of main-tenance, operation and maintenance of buildings, structures and equipment, social security contribu-tions) are accumulated in the accounts of the over-head which are then referred to the whole lot of manufactured goods and services. However, costs such as waste disposal, training areas return logis-tics, obtaining environmental permits, payment of due fees and other environmental costs are still nowhere to be taken into account.

For example, if the start of new production re-quires the use of hazardous materials, the cost of which the company has the potential to incur in order to eliminate the spill of hazardous materials in an emergency, can be classified as “unexpected” expenses. However, any oil spill in the future may also lead to cost “for the restoration of credit / negative public opinion”, such as anxiety among employees and neighbors, as well as “external” costs, such as damage to nearby aquatic ecosys-tems.

If the activity is carried out in compliance with government regulations and meet the expectations of customers, companies are motivated to develop “green” practices. “Green” movement - is not only thinking, company image, strategy, and success factor functioning of supply chains. Rightly do not focus only on the achievements associated with the consumption of clean water and the search for al-ternative energy sources for server rooms, but also in the design and construction of environmentally friendly supply chain. n

Aleksandr Dmitriev

Aleksandr Dmitriev is a Ph.D Associate Professor at the St. Petersburg State University of Economics (Docent of Commerce and Logistics Chair). Besides being the author of more than 40 scientific publications, he is also the Deputy Dean of the department of Commerce and Marketing at the St. Petersburg State University of Economics. His interests in research lay in the following domains: logistics, supply chain management, theory of traffic flow and green logistics.

The article investigates general questions of green logistics principles and resource-saving technologies. It reveals the basic green logistics processes in supply chains and substantiates the significant role of this concept in preserving the environment.

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Whether managing existing supply chains or de-veloping new products and services, companies are increasingly concerned about their environmental footprint, including natural resource consumption and waste generation. To fully understand product sustainability, a business must consider not only its own operations, but also its entire network of sup-pliers, customers, and supporting resources. This article describes the methods and challenges of lifecycle assessment — a comprehensive approach for quantifying the environmental sustainability of supply chains, from raw material acquisition to end-of-life material recovery.

The expanding scope of corporate sustain-ability

Over the last decade, environmental sustain-ability has evolved from an obscure fringe concept to a mainstream concern at the highest levels of corporate governance. This dramatic shift is partly due to changes in the business environment — anxieties over climate change and energy security, increased pressures from stakeholder advocacy groups, and regulatory directives that oblige com-panies to consider the environmental impacts of their products and operations.

Another key force driving the adoption of sustainabil ity principles has been a growing understanding of its influences on competitiveness and shareholder value creat ion. As early as the 1980s, companies like 3M began to see a connection between cleaner production and operational efficiency, and began to proactively modify their production processes and technologies to generate less pollution and waste. Common pollution prevention practices include better housekeeping, more-efficient use of resources, elimination of toxic or hazardous substances, process simplification, source reduction, and recycling of process wastes.

By the 1990s, many companies had taken the next logical step — applying these concepts to the full product life- cycle and incorporating environ-mental awareness into their product development processes. Through programs such as Responsible Care (the global voluntary initiative under which chemical companies work to improve their health, safety and environmental performance, and to communicate with stakeholders about their prod-ucts and processes), the concepts of product stewardship and corporate citizenship emerged, signifying a broad commitment by companies to environmental and social responsibility. Leading companies, such as SC Johnson, Kimberly-Clark, and Xerox, have adopted design for environment strategies, which include eliminating toxic con-stituents, reducing packaging, conserving energy, utilizing renewable materials, extending product life, and facilitating end-of-life recovery.

Today, the financial community has recognized that sustainability contributes to shareholder value not only through cash flow improvement, but also through improved asset utilization, customer satis-faction, and brand recognition. Corporate sustain-ability is defined by the Dow Jones Sustain- ability Indexes as a business approach that creates long-term shareholder value by embracing opportuni-ties and managing risks that derive from economic, environmental and social developments. This view combines market-oriented innovation and value creation with traditional cost reduction and en-vironmental, health and safety management prac-tices.

In search of strategic advantage, many global companies are expanding the scope of their sus-tainability initiatives to encompass their full supply chains. A commitment to supply chain sustainabil-ity requires awareness of the full product lifecycle, ranging from the conduct of upstream suppliers to

Evaluating Supply Chain Sustainability

Lifecycle analysis (LCA) techniques can be used to quantify the environmental performance of a product, process, or service. This article describes several LCA

methods and their application to supply chains.

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the disposition of obsolete products. For example, companies like HP and Walmart have implement-ed green purchasing policies to ensure that their suppliers adopt sustainable business practices. As multinational firms extend into emerging markets, globalization and outsourcing have only accentu-ated the importance of corporate environmental and social responsibility in supply chain manage-ment. Meanwhile, recurrent incidents of product contamination have heightened customer concern about product quality and integrity.

The expanding scope of corporate sustainabil-ity concerns has gradually led to a broader scope of environmental assessment — going beyond the process or facility fenceline to the full range of en-terprise and supply chain operations. As illustrat-ed in Figure 1, broadening the system boundaries eventually encompasses the entire product lifecy-cle, and extends beyond industrial operations to the supporting economic and ecological systems. Understanding the interdependencies among these systems and, in particular, quantifying the value of ecosystem services — such as carbon sequestra-tion and nutrient cycling — has become the new frontier of sustainability assessment (1).

The complexity and global reach of modern supply networks, which may involve hundreds of suppliers and customers, make it challenging to measure and manage their performance. In par-ticular, with regard to both financial and environ-mental performance, lifecycle analysis tools are needed to support business decision-making re-garding new product introduction, supplier selec-tion, capital investment, supply chain operations, and product take-back processes. Some companies have adopted new techniques for life- cycle cost

analysis, which quantify indirect or hidden costs across the lifecycle of a facility, product, or pro-cess. Similar approaches have been used in the de-fense, construction, information technology, and other industry sectors to capture the total cost of ownership.

This article focuses on a class of analytic meth-ods, called lifecycle assessment (LCA) techniques, used to quantify the environmental performance of a product, process, or service. While costs can be measured in dollars, environmental impacts are more elusive — they cannot be measured with a single indicator and often cannot be measured at all. In recent years, both the academic and business communities have turned to LCA as a methodology for expanding the scope of sustainability considera-tions across the supply chain. However, application of LCA requires significant training and has many hidden pitfalls, so it must be used with caution.

Lifecycle assessment methodology LCA refers to a collection of modeling methods

that seek to rigorously analyze the environmental implications of a product, process, or service from a full lifecycle perspective. Resources are con-sumed and wastes or emissions are generated at each stage of the lifecycle, from natural resource extraction through material processing, transpor-tation, manufacturing or assembly, distribution, customer use, and eventual recycling or disposi-tion. The objective of LCA is to estimate the net energy or material flows associated with a product lifecycle, as well as the associated environmental impacts (2). By understanding these flows, compa-nies can develop strategies to reduce their adverse impacts in ways that are cost-effective, and poten-tially even profitable.

The first standard methodology for LCA, devel-oped by the Society for Environmental Chemistry and Toxicology in the early 1990s, involved the fol-lowing steps:

1. Goal and scope. Define the product, process, or activity to be assessed and the goal, scope, and system boundaries of the assessment. For comparative studies, it is important to define the functional unit of comparison.

Figure 1. The

breadth of system boundaries for

supply chain analysis may vary

considerably.

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2. Lifecycle inventory. Develop a system-wide in-ventory of the environmental burdens by identi-fying and quantifying energy and materials used and wastes released to the environment at each stage of the lifecycle.

3. Lifecycle impacts. Assess the impacts of the energy and materials consumption and waste releases on the environment and/or human health.

4. Interpretation. Evaluate the results and imple-ment opportunities for improvement.

The original LCA methodology has been up-dated and standardized through guidelines de-veloped by the International Organization for Standardizat ion ( ISO 14040:2006 and ISO 14044:2006). These guidelines ensure that all as-sumptions are transparent, that the system bounda-ries and functional unit of analysis (i.e., product or service value delivered) are clearly defined, and that data quality, uncertainty, and gaps are clearly stated.

LCA has frequently been applied to compare alternative technologies or materials for common consumer products. Figure 2 illustrates a simple lifecycle model that can be used to compare dis-posable paper cups with cups made of polystyrene foam. The paper cup lifecycle is divided into five major stages — raw material extraction, produc-tion (involving multiple process steps), distribu-tion, customer use, and end-of-life. Some fraction of used paper cups will be recycled back into the paper production chain, and the rest will be land-filled. A similar model can be constructed for poly-styrene cups, except that the raw material stage involves chemical production rather than logging. One key assumption is the equivalent functional unit — in this case, the paper vs. polystyrene cups are equivalent, but an analysis of grocery bags might assume that two plastic bags equal one paper bag in terms of grocery-carrying capacity.

Traditional LCA studies have been based on bottom-up analysis — detailed characterization of selected industrial processes within the supply chain. Because data collection can become burden-

some, a critical issue is establishing the scope of the study in order to keep it manageable. In Figure 2, for example, the study boundary excludes the pro-duction of fuel and electric energy, relying instead on published data. LCA studies typically do not collect data on secondary supply chain components, such as truck manufacturing and maintenance, as well as infrastructure maintenance. They may also exclude secondary manufacturing inputs, such as catalysts, cleaning agents, and auxiliary supplies.

These practical scoping decisions can lead to omissions or assumptions that may introduce sig-nificant error. Alternative top-down methods (dis-cussed later) overcome this problem by expanding the study boundary and using industry- average es-timates of material and energy flows. These newer methods offer a more streamlined approach and deliver more complete, albeit approximate, results.

Inventory assessment Development of a lifecycle inventory involves

step- by-step analysis of each process within the study boundary (logging, production, etc.) in order to estimate the resources consumed and the waste or emissions generated. The resources typically analyzed include different types of energy and ma-terials, and accounting for resource flows in a sup-ply network often requires allocation of the envi-ronmental burdens based on relative mass or cost. Rapidly renew- able energy (e.g., wind power) and materials (e.g., wood) have traditionally been re-garded as resource-neutral, since they can be re-placed through ecological processes, whereas con-sumption of nonrenewable resources depletes the

Figure 2. The study boundary for the paper cup LCA excludes detailed analysis of the production of fuel and electric energy.

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avail- able stock. Some more-recent LCA methods account for the use of water and other ecological goods and services that are necessary for continued availability of renewable resources.

Consider again the paper vs. polystyrene cup example. Many environmental advocates have cam-paigned against the use of polystyrene because it is derived from petrochemicals, arguing that paper is preferable because it is a renewable resource and is biodegradable. In fact, the city of Portland, OR, banned polystyrene cups even though paper cups were more expensive. However, early lifecycle inventory studies comparing uncoated paper cups with polystyrene suggested that paper had higher environmental burdens. For example, Figure 3 compares several categories of resource consump-tion and emissions on a relative scale (3). A more-recent, more-comprehensive study funded by the American Chemistry Council found that a 16-oz polystyrene cup is roughly equivalent to a paper cup, but slightly preferable when the paper cup is combined with a corrugated paper sleeve (4). In general, LCA studies often yield conf licting or inconclusive results, and are highly dependent on specific assumptions such as the end-of-life recy-cling rate.

Impact assessment Within the LCA framework described above,

the most- challenging step is characterization of the impacts associated with resource use and environ-mental emissions during each lifecycle stage. These impacts may include environmental, health or safe-ty impacts on humans and ecosystems, as well as economic impacts such as land use restriction and resource depletion. Moreover, impacts may be lo-cal, regional or global in nature.

The assessment of impacts is problematic be-cause the complex physical and chemical phenome-na that determine the fate and effects of substances released to the environment are not well-under-stood. Despite much continuing scientific research, knowledge in this arena remains fragmentary and largely theoretical. In some cases, such as green-house gas emissions or energy consumption, the impacts are cumulative and broadly distributed, but in other cases, such as mercury emissions or water consumption, the impacts are highly local-ized and dependent on specific environmental con-ditions.

Traditional methods for environmental impact assessment are not appropriate for product devel-opment purposes because they are detailed and site-specific, whereas LCA is applied at a broad-er system level. Lifecycle impact assessment uses simplified models that provide relative measures of impact within broad categories. These catego-ries ref lect midpoint indicators of potential im-pact rather than final endpoints corresponding to predicted impacts. For example, the Tool for the Reduction and Assessment of Chemical and other Environmental Impacts (TRACI), developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and widely used in North America, uses CFC-11 equivalents per kg of emissions as a midpoint in-

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joseph Fiksel is the executive director of the Center for Resilience at the Ohio State Univ., (Baker Systems Room 210, 1971 Neil Ave., Columbus, OH 43210; Phone: (614) 688-8155; E-mail: Fiksel.2@osu. edu), where he collaborates with companies, government agencies, non-profits and other research organizations to develop new methods and tools for understanding the interdependence

among social, environmental, and economic interests. He is also principal and co-founder of the consulting Firm Eco-Nomics LLC. He is a recognized authority on sus-tainable business practices, with more than 25 years of research and consulting experience for multinational cor-porations, government agencies, and organizations such as the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

Figure 3. A lifecycle inventory allows

comparison of disposable cups

made of paper and polystyrene foam.

Source: (3).

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dicator of ozone depletion potential, rather than assessing the ultimate effects on humans and other organisms of increased exposure to ultraviolet ra-diation (5). Based on such indicators, it is possible to use simplified impact assessment coefficients to derive relative comparisons of design options in terms of their potential adverse effects on humans or the environment. Assessing the actual risks of such effects requires more detailed environmental risk assessment methods.

An example of impact assessment results is presented in Figure 4, which compares a variety of options, including both reusable and dispos-able drinking cups. This particular analysis uses an assessment methodology developed in the Netherlands (6) and considers the following mid-point categories:

�� abiotic mineral resources depletion potential (ADP) — indicates consumption of nonliving raw materials (e.g., crude oil, iron ore) relative to the existing stock in the Earth’s crust

�� global warming potential (GWP) — indi-cates emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) expressed in CO2 equivalents; combustion of renewable materials (e.g., paper) is considered carbon-neutral

�� ozone depletion potential (ODP) — indicates emissions of ozone-depleting substances (e.g., chlorof luorocarbons), expressed in CFC-11 equivalents

�� human toxicity potential (HTP) — indicates potential risk to humans resulting from emis-sions of toxic substances, accounting for their probable fate in the environment and estimated toxic concentration levels

�� freshwater aquatic eco-toxicity potential (FAETP) — indicates potential risk to freshwa-ter organisms resulting from emissions of toxic substances, accounting for their probable fate in the environment and estimated toxic concentra-tion levels

�� marine aquatic eco-toxicity potential (MAETP) — indicates potential risk to marine organisms resulting from emissions of toxic substances, accounting for their probable fate in the en-vironment and estimated toxic concentration levels

�� terrestrial eco-toxicity potential (TETP) — indicates potential risk to terrestrial wildlife resulting from emissions of toxic substances, accounting for their probable fate in the environment and estimated toxic concentration levels

�� photochemical ozone creat ion potent ia l (POCP) — indicates potential for smog forma-tion due to sunlight acting on pollutants (e.g., volatile organic compounds [VOCs], car- bon monoxide) in the presence of nitrogen oxides, expressed in acetylene (C2H2) equivalents

�� acidification potential (AP) — indicates poten-tial for adverse effects on vegetation, aquatic life, and human property due to deposition of acidating emissions (e.g., SO2, NOx), measured in SO2-equivalents

�� eutrophication potential (EP) — indicates po-tential adverse effects of excessive levels of ma-cronutrients (e.g., nitrogen, phosphorus) result-ing in increased biomass production and oxygen depletion (e.g., the formation of dead zones), expressed in phosphate (PO4) equivalents.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

He began his career at DuPont of Canada, and subse-quently was director of decision and risk management at Arthur D. Little and vice president for lifecycle manage-ment at Battelle. He has published more than 70 refer-eed articles and several books, and is a frequent invited speaker at professional conferences. Fiksel holds a BSc in electrical engineering from MIT, MSc and PhD in opera-

tions research from Stanford Univ., and an advanced de-gree in applied mathematics from La Sorbonne. His latest book, Design for Environment: A Guide to Sustainable Product Development (21), was published by McGraw-Hill in 2009.

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The results in Figure 4 suggest that reusable mugs have a larger environmental impact, mainly because of the energy required to clean them after each use. However, the differences between paper and polystyrene are mixed; for example, paper ap-pears to have higher impacts for ozone depletion and human and wildlife toxicity, while poly- sty-rene scores higher in global warming and mineral resources depletion. It is difficult to reach defini-tive conclusions in light of such trade-offs.

Weighting schemes A common practice in environmental assess-

ment is to use scoring or weighting techniques to aggregate various specific performance measures. Thus, the ten individual scores listed above (ADP, GWP, etc.) could be combined into a single num-ber. However, this practice is not recommended because the results may be misleading.

Weighting schemes may reflect a variety of dif-ferent considerations, including: �� values of different stakeholder groups (e.g., cus-

tomers vs. community) �� relative importance of environmental impacts

(e.g., human health vs. ecology) �� internal business priorities (e.g., strategic ad-

vantage).

For example, the ISO 14040-43 guidelines for lifecycle assessment include an intricate scheme for quantifying the impacts of substance emissions: classification of substances according to their ef-fects (e.g., carcinogens), characterization of their collective impacts based on environmental expo-

sure and effect modeling, normalization of the effects relative to a benchmark, and weighting of effect scores based on relative importance. Such schemes may conceal policies and value judgments that can skew the results in unintended ways. Therefore, it is important to maintain the ability to drill down in order to understand how specific data contribute to the overall score.

Limitations The LCA methodology just described has sev-

eral limitations:

�� Rigorous application of LCA requires special-ized expertise and training, and can involve considerable time and expense.

�� Process-level data are difficult to obtain and may have large uncertainties, especially with new technologies that have not been in wide-spread use.

�� LCA requires assumptions and subjective judg-ments that may be difficult to validate, and therefore results from different investigators cannot be readily compared.

�� System boundaries must be drawn, but im-portant stages in the upstream supply chain or downstream product use chain may be inad-vertently omitted.

�� Inventory assessment alone is inadequate for meaningful comparison, yet impact assessment is fraught with scientific difficulties.

�� Conventional LCA does not account for ecosys-tem goods and services (e.g., biomass provision, nutrient cycling) and the impacts of renewable resource use, nor does it compare the results against the biocapacity or availability of such resources.

Notwithstanding these limitations, with ap-propriate definition of system boundaries LCA can be a useful tool for identifying the environmental advantages or drawbacks of various design options, thus supporting product-development decisions (7). Sensitivity analysis can be helpful in deter-mining whether the findings are dependent on any key data inputs or assumptions. However, caution

Figure 4. An impact assessment

compares the potential adverse

effects on humans or the

environment. Source: (6).

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should be exercised in using the results of such analyses for external marketing and communica-tion, such as comparative product claims.

Lifecycle footprint methodsBecause of the limitations of LCA, many com-

panies have turned to footprint indicators as a less complex and more meaningful way to measure their environment performance. The term foot-print has become popular in the environmental lexicon, but it is used so loosely as to be virtu-ally meaningless. Most practitioners think of an environmental footprint as an aggregate measure of the total burden that a company, a household, or a community places on the environment. Some have interpreted this in terms of a single metric, such as a carbon footprint, while others have inter-preted it as a collection of indicators representing different environmental burdens (e.g., energy use, solid waste, air emissions). In the latter case, plot-ting these indicators on a spider-web chart enables a company to track its progress over time as the footprint shrinks toward zero.

Various study boundaries commonly used for footprint analysis are depicted in Figure 5. For example, an energy consumption footprint may include only nonrenewable energy sources (e.g., petroleum-based fuels, coal, nuclear) or may in-clude renewable sources (e.g., solar, wind, geother-mal). A material footprint may analyze total mass through- put, may focus only on consumption of input materials, or may focus on wastes, which in turn may include solids, liquids, and/or airborne emissions. Note that a carbon footprint focuses on just one type of airborne emissions, greenhouse gases. Furthermore, a material footprint may in-clude only products purchased within the economy, may include consumption of materials derived from ecological sources, such as biomass (e.g., grass, wood, fish), or may include ecological resources that are not consumed but can be degraded (e.g., water).

A more-challenging task is quantifying the envi-ronmental footprint of a company or other entity in terms of the ecosystem goods and services that are required to support its operations. For example, one technique uses land area as an indicator, but it is difficult to capture many important ecosystem services, such as climate regulation, water purifica-

tion, and pollination. New scientific methods based on lifecycle exergy consumption (discussed later) make it possible to quantify all of the indicators shown in Figure 5 within a common framework.

To further complicate matters, the scope of a footprint analysis can vary enormously based on the chosen lifecycle boundary. A materials or en-ergy footprint may be confined to the direct op-erations of a company or facility, it may extend to indirect activities associated with purchased goods or services, or it may encompass the full breadth of ecosystem goods and services. In published en-vironmental reports, many companies quantify their environmental footprint in terms of direct consumption of resources and direct generation of waste and emissions. Efforts have begun, however, to include the broader supply chain footprint using lifecycle analysis methods.

Carbon footprint. A carbon footprint can be calculated by taking an inventory of the total greenhouse gas emissions for a company, facility, product, community, family, or any other entity. The Kyoto Protocol identifies six GHGs: carbon di-oxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, perf luorocarbons, and hydrofluorocarbons. Each GHG has a global warming potential (GWP) that can be expressed in terms of equivalent CO2 (8). Carbon footprints can be expressed in either abso-lute terms, i.e., CO2-equivalent metric tons per year, or in normalized terms, e.g., CO2-equivalent kg per sales dollar, per kg of product output, per employee, or per square foot of space. Carbon

Figure 5. Environmental footprint indicators may be developed based onvarious LCA study boundaries.

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footprints are typically organized in terms of three successively broader scopes, covering the following GHG sources: �� scope 1 — fuel combustion in vehicles or facili-

ties that are directly owned and/or controlled �� scope 2 — purchased electricity from fossil fuel

combustion �� scope 3 — other indirect sources of GHG emis-

sions (e.g., waste disposal, business travel).

The accepted practice for Scope 3 sources is to allow considerable latitude in the inclusion of life-cycle emissions (9). Most carbon footprints address primarily Scope 1 and 2 emissions, so the carbon-neutral label may be misleading. If a company were to consider all of the energy expended in the supply chain to provide purchased goods and services, its overall carbon footprint could be as much as 10 to 20 times larger.

The GHG Protocol, a joint effort of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and the World Resources Institute, has launched a new in it iat ive to produce internat iona l standards for product lifecycle accounting and corporate value chain accounting that is expected to be released in 2010. These standards will help to achieve greater precision and uniformity in the estimation of Scope 3 GHG emissions using lifecycle inventory methods.

Materials footprint. A mass-balance ap-proach called material f low analysis (MFA) is widely used in Europe, Japan, and other nations to estimate the total material and waste burdens generated by an economic system or a specific en-

terprise (10). MFA calculates the mass of materials entering and leaving a defined system, and provides several useful footprint indicators:

�� per capita material consumption. Studies have shown that supporting the lifestyle of the av-erage European requires a direct material con-sumption of about 44 kg/d, or close to 100 lb/d. The majority of these materials are con-struction minerals, fossil fuels, and biomass from agriculture.

�� total material requirements. This measures the additional burdens of indirect hidden f lows, including mining wastes and other discarded materials that are carried along with the direct material inputs but generate no economic value and may disturb the natural environment. For the average European, this is estimated to be about 220 kg/d.

�� material intensity. This is the ratio of mate-rial f low to total value produced. MFA studies suggest that the European Union economy has become more eco-efficient, since material in-tensity slowly declined from about 1.2 kg/€ in 1992 to about 1 kg/€ in 2000 (11). However, absolute material consumption continues to in-crease due to economic growth.

Similarly, by drawing the boundary around an enterprise or a specific product system, MFA can be used to measure its material intensity. However, reliance on mass f low indicators can be deceptive for several reasons. First, not all materials are equal in terms of their environmental impacts, and MFA does not distinguish materials in terms of toxicity or other properties. Second, MFA often does not account for the hidden environmental burdens as-sociated with imported materials. In an economy where global sourcing is increasingly the norm, the question of allocating accountability for these up-stream material flows remains challenging.

Land area footprint. A technique called eco-logical footprint uses land area (hectares) as a met-ric for estimating the productive capacity needed to support both resource consumption and waste ab-sorption for a specified economic activity, such as power generation (12). This footprint can be inter-preted as the burden placed on the carrying capac-ity of ecosystems, which is the maximum amount

Figure 6. The Eco-LCA tool was used

to compare the renewability and

return on energy of alternative

automotive fuels.

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of replenishment per unit time that they can sup-port without impairment. The worldwide carrying capacity is estimated to be 2.1 hectares per capita, of which 1.6 hectares are land-based ecosystems such as forests, pastures, and arable land and 0.5 hectares are ocean areas.

The average ecological footprint per capita is estimated to be 12.3 hectares in the U.S., 7.7 hectares in Canada, and 6.3 hectares in Germany. Hence, it is often stated that it would take more than three planet Earths to support the world’s population if they all adopted the lifestyle of a de-veloped nation. The average footprint for all na-tions is estimated to be 2.8 hectares per capita, suggesting that humanity has already overshot global capacity and is depleting the available stock of natural capital.

Although it has been used primarily at a nation-al level, ecological footprint analysis can be applied at any level of granularity, from an entire nation to a single individual. Thus, it offers a method for estimating the ecological burden associated with economic enterprises, supply chains, or communi-ties (13).

Water footprint. The water footprint of a product or an entire enterprise can be defined as the total annual volume of fresh water that is used directly in operations and indirectly in the supply chain (14). This is sometimes called virtual water.

Some industries, such as food processing, use large quantities of water. Even businesses that use very little water for manufacturing may still have a substantial supply-chain water footprint if their raw materials come from agricultural sources. For example, the footprint for cotton garment manu-facturers includes a large amount of irrigation wa-ter. In addition, consumers who launder those gar-ments use a considerable amount of water over the product lifecycle, and this can be considered part of the footprint from an extended producer respon-sibility perspective. In the U.S., nearly 25% of all fresh water use is process water for steam turbines in electric power generation, and this may often be the largest component of a company’s water foot-print. The water foot- print of common foods can range from about 1,000 L per kg of grain to about 16,000 L per kg of beef (15).

Water use can be measured in terms of water volumes consumed, i.e., evaporated, and/or pol-luted per unit of time. Thus, water that is simply borrowed, as in hydroelectric power generation, does not count as usage. The water footprint can be split into three elements:

�� blue water — the volume of fresh water that was evaporated from surface water or ground water resources

�� green water — the volume of fresh water that was evaporated from rainwater stored in the soil as soil moisture

�� gray water — the volume of polluted water, calculated as the volume of water that was re-quired to dilute pollutant discharges in order to meet water quality standards.

Unlike greenhouse gases, the ecological or so-cial impact of a water footprint depends not only on the volume of water used, but also on the geo-graphic locations and timing of the water use. Water-stressed or arid regions are more vulnerable to water use, especially during dry seasons.

Streamlined LCA Many LCA practitioners have turned toward

simplified LCA tools that provide results more quickly and with less effort, but also with less pre-cision. Especially in the early stages of product development, such tools may be more appropriate for rapid design iteration. Alternative approaches have emerged that are more comprehensive and more streamlined, although less fine-grained than conventional LCA. For example, Carnegie Mellon Univ. developed a tool that uses aggregate input-output data to model the entire economy from a top-down perspective (16).

Such advanced methods are a useful comple-ment to detailed, bottom-up LCA. In particular, since streamlined LCA requires only basic data about resource inputs, it is helpful in assessing new products when emissions data are not yet available. Streamlined methods can also be combined with detailed methods through hybrid LCA studies, which embed a focused LCA for specific industrial processes within a broader envelope representing the rest of the economy. »

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Ohio State Univ. (OSU) has developed an online, stream- lined LCA tool called Eco-LCA that combines an economic input-output model of 488 sectors of the U.S. economy with an eco-logical resource consumption model based on ex-ergy analysis. Eco-LCA enables immediate assess-ment or comparison of proposed designs based on an approximate bill of materials, and can display a variety of lifecycle indicators, ranging from a simple carbon or water footprint to a comprehen-sive ecosystem goods and services consumption profile. With support from the National Science Foundation, a public version of the Eco-LCA tool is available free of charge at www.resilence.osu.edu.

Exergy analysis Recent advances in LCA capture the material

and energy flows in complex systems based on the laws of thermodynamics. Exergy is defined as the available work that can be extracted from a materi-al. The exergy content of a fuel, for example, is es-sentially its heat content (17). All of the factors of industrial production — energy, materials, land, air, water, wind, tides, and even human resources — can be represented in terms of exergy f lows. Therefore, exergy can be used as a universal indi-cator to measure eco-efficiency and sustainability in industrial-ecological systems (18).

This method has the unique capability to quan-tify the contributions of most ecosystem services, and is particularly useful for analyzing new tech-nologies when detailed process-level data are non- existent. It is also useful for aggregation of envi-ronmental impacts, since it correctly accounts for the differences in quality among various resources (e.g., energy from sunlight is much lower in quality than electrical energy).

OSU incorporated exergy analysis into a comprehensive lifecycle assess-ment of bio-based fuels, funded by the National Science Foundation. This study uses a hybrid meth-odology, combining a de-tailed process model of et hanol product ion with the Eco-LCA model of the U.S. economy to rep -resent commodity f lows from outside

the process boundaries. Figure 6 shows the results of such a study of biofuels in terms of renewability (percent from renew- able sources) and return on energy (megajoules delivered per megajoule con-sumed over the lifecycle). This analysis indicates that the renewability of municipal solid waste is far greater than the renewability of corn etha-nol, which requires energy-intensive harvesting. Gasoline has a far superior return on energy, al-though it is not renewable (19)

Integrated lifecycle thinking Lifecycle assessment methods can be challeng-

ing to apply, and may be inappropriate in situations where adequate data are not readily available. But lifecycle thinking is essential to a modern enter-prise that wants to understand strategic risks and opportunities through its supply chain.

The use of streamlined LCA or footprint indi-cators may be sufficient to support strategic pri-ority setting and business decision-making. For purposes of environmental performance measure-ment and stakeholder communication, simple and meaningful indicators such as material intensity are generally the most practical and useful.

For example, Coca-Cola has adopted a water steward- ship strategy based on a water efficiency ratio, i.e., liters of water per liter of product. The ratio has steadily declined to about 2.5 in 2007, and the company has announced a global goal of 20% improvement by 2012 from the baseline year of 2004. Coca-Cola’s ultimate goal is to achieve water neutral- ity by returning water to nature equivalent to what it uses in its operations.

One of the shortcomings of traditional LCA is the separation of resources, emissions,

and impacts into separate categories, as if they were independent. As companies

gain a better understanding of their supply chain environmental per-

formance, they are beginning to understand the linkages

among different indicators of sustainability. The U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) has recognized that water and energy use are closely related and has mounted a major initiative to address

Figure 7. The material-energy-

water nexus illustrates the

interdependence of essential natural

resources.

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this “energy-water nexus.” In fact, the global water cycle is closely linked to the global carbon cycle, with vegetation playing a vital role through photo-synthesis (20).

An extension of this integrative approach re-veals the material-energy- water nexus, depicted in Figure 7. Materials are essential to the supply of both energy and water, and vice versa. In fact, the root cause of the enormous carbon footprint of the U.S. — over 7 billion metric tons per year — is material throughput, which drives the consumption of energy throughout the economy (21).

Current efforts to improve supply chain sustainability focus on incremental efficiency gains,

such as shorter trans- port distances and pooled urban distribution via common carriers. However, the real sustainability challenge is to reduce the growth of material requirements — to decouple economic well-being from resource consumption. What is needed is a paradigm shift from a material-based economy based on throughput, product delivery, and material wealth to a value-based economy based on knowledge, service delivery, and quality of life. Integrated lifecycle thinking will help companies to achieve breakthrough innovation, and to collaborate with governmental and nongovernmental organizations to realize the vision of a sustainable and prosperous society. n

LITERATURE CITED1. Bakshi, B. R., and j. Fiksel, “The Quest for Sustainability,” AIChE journal, 49 (6), pp. 1350–1358 ( june 2003).

2. Curran, M. A., ed., “Environmental Life Cycle Assessment,” McGraw-Hill, New York, NY (1996).

3. Hocking, M. B., “Paper versus Polystyrene: A Complex Choice,” Science, 251 (4993), pp. 504–505 (1991).

4. Franklin Associates, Ltd.,“Life Cycle Inventory of Polystyrene Foam, Bleached Paperboard, and Corrugated Paperboard Foodservice Products,” www.ameri-

canchemistry.com/s_plastics/sec_pfpg. asp?CID=1439&DID=5231, American Chemistry Council, Wash- ington, DC (Mar. 2006).

5. Bare, j. C., et al., “TRACI — The Tool for the Reduction and Assessment of Chemical and Other Environmental Impacts,” journal of Industrial Ecology, 6

(3–4), pp. 49–78 (2003).

6. Lighart, T. N., and A. M. M. Ansems, “Single-Use Cups or Reusable (Coffee) Drinking Systems: An Environmental Comparison,” Netherlands Organization

for Applied and Scientific Research, TNO Report No. 2006-A-R0246(E)/B (2007).

7. Keoleian, G. A., and D. V. Spitzley, “Life Cycle Based Sustain- ability Metrics,” in Abraham, M. A., ed., “Sustainability Science and Engineering,” Elsevier B.V.,

Amsterdam (2006).

8. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change,” IPCC, Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, U.K. (2007).

9. World Business Council for Sustainable Development/World Resources Institute, “The Greenhouse Gas Protocol: A Corporate Accounting and Reporting

Standard,” WBCSD and WRI, Geneva, Switzerland (2004).

10. Bringezu, S., et al., “Rationale for and Interpretation of Economy- Wide Materials Flow Analysis and Derived Indicators,” journal of Industrial Ecology, 7

(2), pp. 43–64 (2003).

11. Ester van der Voet, et al., “Policy Review on Decoupling: Development of Indicators to Assess Decoupling of Economic Development and Environmental

Pressure in the EU-25 and AC-3 Countries,” Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML), Leiden Univ., Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy,

and CE Solutions for Environment, Economy and Technology, commissioned by the European Commission, Directorate-General for the Environment, Leiden,

the Netherlands (2005).

12. Wackernagel, M., “Advancing Sustainable Resource Management: Using Ecological Footprint Analysis for Problem Formulation, Policy Development, and

Communication,” prepared for the European Commission, Directorate-General for the Environment, Leiden, the Netherlands (Feb. 2001).

13. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, “Indicators to Measure Decoupling of Environmental Pressure from Economic Growth,” www.

olis.oecd.org/olis/2002doc.nsf/LinkTo/sg-sd(2002)1-final. (2002).

14. Gerbens-Leenes, P. W., and A. Y. Hoekstra, “Business Water Footprint Accounting,” UNESCO Institute for Water Education, Delft, the Netherlands (2008).

15. Water Footprint Network, Univ. of Twente, the Netherlands, www.waterfootprint.org.

16. Hendrickson, C. T., et al., “Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Goods and Services: An Input-Output Approach,” Resources for the Future Press,

Washington, DC (2005).

17. Ayres, R. U., “Resources, Scarcity, Growth and the Environment,” Center for the Management of Environmental Resources, INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France

(Apr. 2001).

18. Hau, j. L., and B. R. Bakshi, “Expanding Exergy Analysis to Account for Ecological Products and Services,” Environmental Science and Technology, 38 (13),

pp. 3768–3777 (2004).

19. Baral, A., and B. R. Bakshi, “Thermodynamic Metrics for Aggregation of Natural Resources in Life Cycle Analysis: Insight via Application to Some

Transportation Fuels,” Environmental Science and Technology, 44 (2), pp. 800–807 (2010).

20. Mauser, W., “Water Resources: Efficient, Sustainable, and Equitable Use,” Haus Publishing, London, U.K. (2007).

21. Fiksel, j., “Design for Environment: A Guide to Sustainable Product Development,” McGraw-Hill, New York, NY (2009).

65 FOCUS

I cur rent ly study MSc Management of Innovation at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM). Before this, I was an Industrial Design Engineering student at Delft University of Technology. Even though Delft and Rotterdam are less than 10 miles apart, there is a big difference between them.

My first weeks in Rotterdam were amazing, as well as all the time spent here ever since. It began with a search for housing, which luckily I found quite fast and easily, just as easy as making many new friends. Most student accommodations in Rotterdam are near the city centre, being sur-rounded by shopping areas, bars and clubs. This means you’re everywhere you need to be within 15 minutes using the outstanding public transport system or going by bicycle.

As a first real introduction to the city, univer-sity, and student and sports associations, I partici-

pated in the Eurekaweek, which is basically four days of touring around, sight-seeing, dinners, bars and fun times with a great group of students.

I got to know Rotterdam a lot better in my spare time. The city offers a lot of possibilities for whoever goes looking for them. Of course there are good shopping areas, an exciting nightlife and several great museums and cultural centres, but other than that, I’m still amazed by the unique fea-tures of this city.

The river Maas offers a lot of beautiful views, in particular of the city skyline and the iconic Erasmus Bridge. Also, the history of Rotterdam is very interesting. All across the city you can see the impact of various historical events that took place within the area. If you come here, I advise you to get a “Rotterdampas”, a card which offers huge dis-counts or even lets you visit attractions for free.

What a difference 10 miles make!

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Of course Rotterdam is not the only interest-ing city in the Netherlands. Luckily it is very easy to travel to other cities such as Delft, The Hague, Leiden, Amsterdam and Utrecht. They all differ from Rotterdam in their own unique way. In ad-dition to the cities, the Netherlands offers a wide variety of memorable attractions such as the wind-mills, f lower fields and the Delta Works. The trains in Belgium and France are also fast and easy to travel with, so visiting Antwerp, Brugge or Paris should also be on your to-do list.

In addition to all the activities, there should also be room for studying. RSM is part of the Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR), which cel-ebrates its centennial this year. The university pro-vides enough room and support to study. Whether you study best on your own in silence or you need background noises to focus, there’s always a place you can find that offers what you need. The classes and lectures I chose don’t take place in big auditori-ums, but in small classrooms with both Dutch and international students, making the lectures highly interactive and exciting.

For RSM’s MSc Management of Innovation pro-gramme, I needed to adapt to a new and interest-ing way of learning. In Delft I studied particularly via repetition of multiple mathematical problems which is very different from reading and in-depth analyses of cases and articles for insights. While Delft provided me with a strong technical back-ground, my current master programme provides me with a broader view on what is important for innovation and organisations. The well-rounded management knowledge taught at RSM is very use-ful for building diverse networks of people and in-teracting within them. Also, I think that my RSM experience strengthens my career perspectives, because coming from a top European business school boosts your chances, especially during pre-screening phases.

The Management of Innovation programme that I follow deliberately works on increasing our chances on the job market. During the last few months we’ve had several in-house-days and guest speakers from big corporations related to educa-tional exercises. To get to know these corpora-

tions better, the EUR also organises several events during the year, such as the Erasmus Recruitment Days, in which 100 local and multinational compa-nies participate.

Personally, I like challenges. Therefore I decid-ed at the beginning of this year to participate in a lot of committees and boards, I am in six of them at the moment. One board is for a charity event, or-ganised in 11 student cities across the Netherlands. The committees I am in are all of student associa-tions, including the committee for the Eurekaweek of 2013, I liked it so much!

I st i l l l ike every second that I spend in Rotterdam, whether it’s at the university, on cam-pus, visiting companies, at home or at the student association. I try to waste as little time as possible on nonsense, since there are still a lot of exciting moments waiting for me in Rotterdam. I definitely don’t want to leave just yet. n

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Having an amazing view at day and at night from the Gellért hill to the old and fascinating buildings and beautiful bridges over the huge Danube? Enjoying the strong and warm taste of Pálinka? Partying to cheap prices in diverse and unique ruin pubs, in thermal baths and on the biggest ice skating rink in Europe? Welcome to Budapest!

My semester was a bit different than it has been for an average exchange student. Of course I was hanging around with international people from all over Europe and all over the world, of course I was travelling often and of course I was partying more often than any time before in my life with crazy people in special locations. But beside this, I spent more time with Hungarians than the others and I could not forget our lovely organisation: ESTIEM

It a l l st ar ted in the mid of August in Székesfehévár, which is a small city somewhere be-tween Budapest and Lake Balaton. Is it even pos-sible to have a better start in your new country than meeting many of your ESTIEM friends there, talking about strategic ESTIEM topics, getting to know the members of Local Group Budapest and also a first impression of the Hungarian culture? I doubt that.

Afterwards, in my first three weeks in Budapest I felt like being on a never ending Activity Week. Alongside finding a room in a f lat, I discovered a

new city, new places, new parks and partied al-most every day all night long with crazy interna-tional people. I visited the parliament, took part of a pub crawl, had a three days long sightseeing tour in which I learned a lot about Budapest, had my first thermal bath visit, played laser tag, went to the semester opening parties and as the closing highlight, I had a trip with 250 exchange students from my new university to Lake Balaton. During this weekend we had a one hour long boat trip, teambuilding games, an afternoon at the thermal lake Hévíz, wine tasting with unlimited wine at a 200 years old wine cellar and we jumped into the biggest lake in central Europe at night. Almost everybody was sick after that sleepless trip.

Then the semester started and the coming 15 weeks until Christmas were more like a long Vision or Brain Trainer event. As a Sales and Marketing student at the Corvinus University of Budapest, I took five subjects. It was not too much work and also not too difficult. Nevertheless, I had ex-ams, case studies, presentations, games and es-says. During the whole semester, I was always in international groups of four to six students. The Corvinus University is located at the edge of the city centre directly at the Danube with around 18.000 students mostly in the fields of economics and management.

I also visited cultural facilities, like for example a classical concert in the National Concert Hall, ‘Otello’ in the Opera House, exhibition of Imre Bukta, a horse race and I did my best with sup-porting Hungary at their 1 to 4 loss in the World Cup Qualification game against the Netherlands. Furthermore, I real ly enjoyed l istening to Hungarian bands in several different locations and it is a wonder that I did not get fat because of the

ERASMUS in Budapest

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Hungarian cuisine, because I ate way too often Lángos and kürtöskalacs.

Because of the close distances and cheap con-nections, Budapest is an ideal starting point for trips. During my time in Budapest, I went to Warsaw, Brat islava, Prague, Szentendre, Esztergom, Szeged, two times Balatonfüred, Novi Sad, Belgrade and to my lovely Regional Coordination Meeting of Region North East in Braunschweig.

However, my best trip was with six other students with a rented car to the countryside of Hungary. Together we discovered the Baroque city Eger while sleeping altogether - and two friendly fighting dogs - in the living room of a Hungarian couple via couch surfing. During the next days, we went to the amazing waterfalls of Lillafüred, en-joyed the view of the top of a tower of the Castle of Diósgyőr, tasted six different wines in a wine cel-lar in Tokaij, which is the most famous Hungarian wine region, had a bath in the warm water of the thermal bath in Miskolctapolca, which is build in a stone with caves, eating a traditional Hungarian dinner in the city centre of the industry town Miskolc and finally visited Hollókő, which is part of the World Heritage.

There are also some other cities you can vis-it easily from Budapest such as Krakow, Vienna, Graz, Transylvanian cities, Zagreb and Ljubljana. And I can strongly recommend you also going to the countryside of Budapest. Beside the above mentioned towns you can also experience a wide range of sights and beautiful places in Pécs, Sopron, Györ, Veszprém, Siófok, Gödölö, Debrecen and so on.

During my 5 month long stay, I spent a lot of t ime with Hungarians. In addition to my Hungarian f lat mate and the local ESN (Erasmus Student Network) organisers, I got to know my girlfriend in Budapest, who is working with blind people. Sometimes I come along with them for climbing, Pilates or running the five km round of the Margaret Island. Or we hung around at one of the colourful and varied pubs in Budapest.

Furthermore, I met the lovely ESTIEMers of Local Group Budapest regularly. For instance, I have followed them to their Local Group exchange to Warsaw and we celebrated the New Year’s Eve together. They also showed me some pubs where Hungarian students go for a drink. That was a nice variety to the big touristic pubs and clubs in the city centre.

What else made my Erasmus diverse? I got up-set about the superficiality of some exchange stu-dents who were in Budapest just using it for cheap drinks, great party locations and good looking girls and not for an international exchange. Comments such as “perfect timing, the European Union has already paid me for the 2nd semester of tourism and leisure in Budapest” or jokes about Hungary instead of knowing something about the Hungarian culture and history or learning more words than “köszönöm” (thank you), “szia” (hello),“egészségére” (cheers) or leaving the city centre of Budapest once for visiting the countryside of Hungary. I am very confident how my Erasmus semester was and I re-ally fell in love with all the strengths and weak-nesses, with all the opportunities and threats of Hungary. I wished I could have stayed longer. n

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One may ask: what is Erasmus?The Erasmus Programme is a European Union

student exchange system established in 1987. Students who join the Erasmus Programme either study for a certain period of time in another uni-versity or do an internship for a period of ranging from at least 3 months to an academic year, in an-other European country. This programme guaran-tees that the period spent abroad is recognized by their origin university when they return, as long as they abide by terms previously agreed.

For many European students, the Erasmus Programme is their first time living and studying abroad. Hence, it has become a cultural phenome-non and is very popular among European students, going on to become the subject of movies such as French film L’Auberge espagnole .

The Programme fosters not only learning and understanding of the host country, but also a sense of community among students from different coun-tries, especially being difficult to know what one might expect. The Erasmus experience is consid-ered both a time for learning as well as a chance to socialize.

From the early start of my university years I was determined to apply for a scholarship. I am currently studying Industrial Engineering and Management within the German department of my Faculty, thus I knew this could be a very good opportunity to improve my German knowl-edge. During my second university year, I visited a friend who was an Erasmus student in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. One week there was more than enough to convince me that Erasmus was the programme tailored for my expectations, and that I had to apply for it. After returning from my one week long enlightening trip, I started to gather in-formation about the programme. After getting a full image of what I wanted from Erasmus in terms of: quality of the destination university adequate for my field of study and country of destination, I started to prepare the application.

I was in doubt which university to choose. One very attractive option was Vienna. Awesome city, great place to live, many things to visit... but there were other 8 colleagues of mine with the same des-tination. Whereas, from my point of view, one of the highlights of the programme was to socialize with other nationalities and if you are surrounded by your own conationals, you are less inclined to go out of your comfort zone. So I had to find some-thing else. In the last moment, I decided to go to Duisburg-Essen University in Germany. I was look-ing on the map and there were so many attractions in the region that I said to myself: “that’s my spot”. I put together the application, had the interview and then the long wait started.

Finally the decision came. I was given a full year scholarship at Duisburg Essen University, Campus Duisburg, Germany. From that point on, my general state of mind changed. I couldn’t stop thinking of how it will be, where I should travel in the year that I’ll be there and so on.

After a summer of planning…The beginning was a bit d i f f icult. I ar-

rived alone in Germany on 2nd of October, in Dortmund. I landed in a country where I had no friends, I couldn’t even speak very well that lan-guage, but I wanted so much to live this experi-ence, that I had no doubts that I could have made the wrong decision.

To Erasmus? Or not to Erasmus?

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The second day, I got my room in a student residence. That was a nice surprise… I knew that student residences in Germany are cool, but I was living in a very big apartment with 3 other guys, each one from another part of the globe (Turkey, Uganda and Spain), each one in his own bedroom and a big living room with a common kitchen. In the next months I met people from all the conti-nents, all living under the same roof, going to the same parties, taking the same classes in the univer-sity. That was really great, at least the first impres-sion. Living in a multi-cultural environment also has disadvantages. Other cultures’ habits are not very easy to get used to, but in order to get along with everybody you have to respect some common rules and then we could be all on the right track.

The International Office organised for the Erasmus students a one-week incoming course, which included trips in the region (North Rhein Westfalen), a German course and what was the most important, the first parties. One of the great-est things that I had access to was the student card with which we had free transportation in the whole NRW. We could go from Duisburg to Aachen (180km) for free, to the border with Netherlands, basically everywhere on a range of 150km. The thing that attracted me the most was the placement of Duisburg, at 200km distance to Amsterdam, 200km to Brussels, 250km to Luxembourg and so on.

In the first days I met the other Erasmus stu-dents, without realising in that moment that some of them will become my best friends in the future months. We were assigned from the International Office of the University to the tutors, ex-Erasmus students, who showed us the Campus, gave us some hints regarding the courses, showed us the short-est route to the university but also the best places to party.

As long as I’ve been in Germany I had no major problems. The only period when I was less happy was in the exam period, when I had to stop attend-ing parties and go daily in the library. The profes-sors in Germany were very strict and the fact that I was an Erasmus student didn’t make them less demanding. I heard so often the expression “I don’t make a difference between my students” that I re-

alised that I really have to study. The time to solve the exams was very short and if you weren’t well prepared, the chances to pass were very low. I had sometimes even two exams in the same day.

But once the exams period was over, we were back to our good life. Parties, travelling, some-times going to classes, no worries, basically the greatest life someone can imagine. In one year I visited amazing places like Paris, London, Genève, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Brussels, Luxembourg and some others.

In the 11 months that I spent there, I improved my German, I learned Spanish, I travelled and I met people from all around the world. I can now say that I have friends everywhere, I am nonstop thinking about visiting them and planning future reunions. With some of the guys I met there I speak almost daily.

Undoubtedly, The Erasmus programme is a life changing experience. It is a time when you discov-er the world and most important you learn more about yourself: Who you are, where you want to go, what others think of you. I think that while be-ing there I improved the impression many people had about Romania and its citizens. n

71 ExplorE EuropE

“Erasmus” def inition according to Roxana Maria Enache = an overwhelming experience in which all the good things in life are being reunited: studying abroad, taking chances and control of one’s life, liv-ing at the fullest, enjoying every bit, inter-cultural ex-changes as well as lots of new friends, parties, trips, all in all a one-time opportunity or should I say a lifetime occasion of overcoming one’s limits and to better appreciate one’s strengths and weaknesses.

First of all, I would like to share with you some “safety-tips” regarding the status of becoming an “Erasmus-student”: you have to wish it, you have to focus on what you really want to obtain with this scholarship – either to consolidate your knowl-edge and learn a bunch of new and useful things or party hard or maybe, why not, both of them. Then you have to choose your dream city and if you know the language that’s spoken over there – well, that’s very good for you, you have to enjoy your-self at your fullest and maybe also take some good friends, colleagues or roommates with you – just in case you get lonely (Got you! Actually you can’t get lonely as an Erasmus-student because you’ll al-ways have plenty of people from other countries or continents that will be honoured, glad and happy to spend some quality time with you and have the possibility to interact in many ways that you can barely imagine).

After all, what’s so fun about being an Erasmus anyway? Lots of people keep saying it is the most

beautiful experience of their lives as students, that it is a chance of getting to know yourself better and of course the chance of partying as long as your feet can dance. So is it true? Or it is only just some non-sense? Well now that’s exactly what we are going to find out, because I, Roxana, the girl who is writ-ing all of this, will share with you, dear readers, her extraordinary and awesome Erasmus-year in the most beautiful city ever, that is – Dresden, in the most cool country ever, meaning – Germany.

In my case, Erasmus was the perfect opportu-nity of becoming more independent and I did crave for it so that I could see what I was capable of doing on my own – and it turned out GREAT! Actually greater than I could expect it to become.

As I embarked on this beautiful cruise, I felt ex-citement, but also a little bit of fear – that strange feeling that most people have when they have to face the unknown. When I was thinking about the fact itself – that I’m going to be “thrown” away into a different country, city and culture, it felt like crazy – I felt like a fish swimming into an ocean. On the other hand, I was extremely happy when thinking about beautiful Dresden, an amazing city, the capital of Saxony, situated on the Elba river, near the border with the Czech Republic, with such a rich culture, a mixture of art and technique and at the famous Technische Universität Dresden (Technical University of Dresden), that was about to become my home university for one year and

Mini-journal of an unforgettable experience

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72explore europe

which during my stay became an Excellence University. All of a sudden it felt like home.

At my arrival, it took me several days, maybe one week, to get to know the city, to handle some paperwork for the university and to do some house-keeping. Well, as you can see, there are also some “disadvantages” regarding the “home-alone” sta-tus. I took all of these as life lessons that I had to do when the time came, so why shouldn’t I start know?

As the time had flown away, I started to get to know a lot of people and make friends. At the TU I was surrounded by boys, because in Germany, the girls prefer studying psychology, modern arts or foreign languages, but instead, I was studying engineering. They were friendly, supportive and they would help you when in trouble. I love the university because I’ve learned so many great and interesting things – I mean not only in theory, but also practical – and that had helped me very much. I also had the chance to choose Russian as a foreign language and I’ve enjoyed learning it – my teacher was so nice, funny and patient with all of us and kept helping us all the time, because believe me, Russian isn’t easy, especially the grammar. We also used to sing, play games and at classes it felt like we were a big family no matter what the cultural dif-ferences were. Day by day, my German was getting better and better and I was very proud of myself, especially because my German friends kept telling me that I speak, write and act like a native. My family and closest friends that know me very well can confirm that I’m very conscious, committed and ambitious and when I do something, no matter what that is, I give it all in.

So I’m guessing you, as a reader, would say by now: “OK, enough with the university-life part, let’s get down to business and discuss the fun-part, that is the all day, all night party-part”.

As an Erasmus student, you get to party a lot. Every single Thursday there was a party dedicat-ed to a country and all of the students from that country had to prepare themselves and make typi-cal things that represent there culture, habits and lifestyle. That was a pretty cool idea, because in that way you could learn so many novelties so that

you don’t have to use a travel guide to get to know a country. Just be an Erasmus-student and the problem is solved. During the summer time, there were so many beautiful events and shows so that you couldn’t get bored – there are always a bunch of things to do when in Dresden. Think about the famous Art Gallery, about the Frauenskirche and all kinds of museums that you could barely imag-ine. So go there and enjoy this wonderful city that has so much to offer.

Another great thing that happened during my stay in the capital of Saxony was that I used to travel a lot. You either could go to Leipzig, Berlin, Prague or to the “Sächsiche Schweiz“ – that looked like Switzerland - because all were so close to Dresden. You just had to take the train or rent a car and off you go. Life’s easy when you make it that way.

I could write so many pages about my memo-ries regarding my one-year scholarship; they are so fresh in my mind as if I was talking about yester-day. I hope I will keep them there safe and sound so that every time I miss Dresden and my “other life” I could easily bring all the memories back to life. Well, that’s it for know. For those who haven’t decided yet on an Erasmus-scholarship, I hope you will take advantage of my story. n

73 ExplorE EuropE

Like you, I am an internationally minded per-son. Moreover, the idea of living apart from what you knew before and what you got used to be-fore always comes to me as being very exciting. It is kind of like feeling rebirth in a new place. Therefore, yes, exactly it is, being an Erasmus stu-dent was my dream, always. Especially, being an Erasmus student in Spain. I had never been in Spain before, but I adored the Spanish culture, music, the life style of people, siestas, fiestas… everything!

For me, my Industr ia l Engineer ing and Management department at my home university had just two agreements in Spain. One in Islas Canarias and the other is, here, Ciudad Real. Islas Canarias would be a great place, but also would be far away from mainland. So, I picked this lit-tle town, Ciudad Real. It was about to become the base for my operations to explore Spain. Actually, as a person who was living in Ankara, I got used to live in the middle of nowhere. Moreover, that gives you a good conversation topic with strangers on the ‘Complaining about the city’ topic.

Afterwards, I have to say that while I am writ-ing this article, I have just spent five months here and I am ecstatic about every moment. Here, we have a big Erasmus Family. Countless Exchange students are studying from all over Europe and Latin America. Thanks to this fact, I can explore not just the Spanish culture; I have the opportu-nity to get to know other magnificent cultures. Wondrously, most of the students are highly open minded and are here to live utmost freedom, some-times I feel like I passed to the dark side of the Force.

Nevertheless, my adventure started with dis-appointment. When I touched ground in Madrid, I was expecting to see lots of gentlemen playing

guitars and lots of ladies dancing with their frilly skirts on the streets. No, there is no such world. If you want to feel Flamenco fire through your veins, you should really go south, to Andalusia.

Believe me, Andalusia and Andalusians are to-tally different. They can be lazy about everything but not about one thing: protecting the culture. If you are aware of where you are, you can still see little Arab children running in the streets of Alhambra and hear clinks of Santa Maria’s anchor. Anyway, as I said, these places are apart from Spain or any other part of the world.

One thing which I cannot let pass without men-tioning it is the Spaniards’ kitchen customs. It is fantastic, they have a really wide menu and in this menu the most important detail is coldness. If you want to eat something, it is better to have it cold or better, if it is liquid, put some ice on it. Plus, there is a huge amount of fish and seafood recipes. Absolutely, it is a good way to balance over-con-sumption of ‘other things’.

Finally, the language issue. Without doubt, it is a perfect privilege to learn Spanish. In Spain, the conditions are perfect to do it. Spaniards do not know how to speak very well English and even if they speak it, they speak in Spanish to you and make an effort to make you learn. They are very kind. They are very willing to teach their language. Beyond that, nearly all foreigners want to improve their Spanish, so it makes the conversation turn to Spanish immediately, that being a good thing for me.

After all, if you have a chance to be an Erasmus student, push yourself for it. If you can come to Spain, do not fall into a dilemma for it. Be sure about it, this country will open its doors for you.n

Being an ERASMUS student was my dream

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74EXPLORE EUROPE

ROTTERDAM SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENTERASMUS UNIVERSITY

Want to know more? Please visit our website

rsm.nl/master

Prepare for a business career with one of the master

programmes at Rotterdam School of Management,

Erasmus University (RSM):

» Strategic Management» General Management» Management of Innovation» Supply Chain Management » Entrepreneurship & New Business Venturing

RSM is ranked top 10 in Europe by the Financial Timesand has a Triple Crown accreditation. We have a superb

international network of partner schools and corporate

partners and more than 80 nationalities represented in

classes. RSM is one of Europe’s top three research

schools in business and management and number one

in the Netherlands.

Qualified in engineering and looking for

State-of-the-art management knowledge?

Page 1; B&T13128 ESTIEM 200x270.pdf

ROTTERDAM SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENTERASMUS UNIVERSITY

Want to know more? Please visit our website

rsm.nl/master

Prepare for a business career with one of the master

programmes at Rotterdam School of Management,

Erasmus University (RSM):

» Strategic Management» General Management» Management of Innovation» Supply Chain Management » Entrepreneurship & New Business Venturing

RSM is ranked top 10 in Europe by the Financial Timesand has a Triple Crown accreditation. We have a superb

international network of partner schools and corporate

partners and more than 80 nationalities represented in

classes. RSM is one of Europe’s top three research

schools in business and management and number one

in the Netherlands.

Qualified in engineering and looking for

State-of-the-art management knowledge?

Page 1; B&T13128 ESTIEM 200x270.pdf

Carl Zeiss AG

Corporate Human Resources

73446 Oberkochen, Germany

www.zeiss.de/career

The moment you see your future in a company where the world is at your fi ngertips.This is the moment we work for.

// FUTURE MADE BY CARL ZEISS

As a leading player in the fields of optics and optoelectronics, Carl Zeiss and its various business groups offer numerous exciting challenges for you.

At Carl Zeiss you will help create technologically pioneering products and witness for yourself how seriously the company takes its responsibility toward

its employees.

You can find current job vacancies and information about Carl Zeiss as an employer on our website: www.zeiss.de/career

Who are we looking for?

Physicists (m/f)

In the business groups and central research division at Carl Zeiss a large

number of physicists work on pioneering developments and push the

boundaries of physics every day.

Scientists (m/f)

Whether you work as a biologist in the field of microscopy or a research

scientist or developer in the central research division, Carl Zeiss offers

you possibilities you have probably never even dreamed of.

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Over 300 Carl Zeiss patents a year: the extensive development and broad

portfolio of high-tech products ensure that engineers are constantly faced

with exciting, new challenges in their work.

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Anyone who feels equally at home in the fields of business and

technology will enjoy the fascinating, future-oriented perspectives we

offer in marketing, sales, service etc.

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In your role of an economist at Carl Zeiss, you will work for a successful

global player and experience a degree of respect and appreciation that

say much more about the company than any figures.

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Carl Zeiss offers exciting challenges for IT experts in the field of software

development. However, IT is also one of the strategic foundations of the

global success of Carl Zeiss.

DE_CHR_Senior_Professionals_210x297.indd 1 20.08.12 15:58