As a child, I wanted to
save the world.
Not in a metaphorical sense. I meant it seriously. Nature, animals, the silence in the mountains — that wasn't a backdrop, it was home. And I understood early on that this home is not to be taken for granted.
That drive never left me. It transformed.
Certified sustainability manager —
and still at a loss.
I trained. I know the standards, regulations, and reporting frameworks. I understood how sustainability works in organisations — or should work.
And then I sat in conversations. With managing directors, team leaders, people who wanted to do better. And I saw: The data didn't move them. The standards didn't move them. Obligation didn't move them.
A rental car.
A motorway. Silence.
I was sitting in a rental car, somewhere between Salzburg and an exit I no longer remember. I had just come out of a meeting. Friendly. Professional. Brief. “No need. We'll be in touch.”
They never got in touch.
I was sad. But underneath that was something else: that quiet, helpless frustration that comes when you see someone knows they're making mistakes — and keeps going anyway. Not out of malice. But because nobody gave them the right words.
The food
went cold.
A few weeks later. Dinner with friends. No pitch, no meeting. Wine, a wooden table, candlelight. Someone asked: “What are you actually working on right now?” And I talked. Not structured. Just honestly.
The knives lay on the table. The food went cold.
A friend said quietly: “I've never heard it like that before.”
The same facts. The same conviction. Not a single new argument. But this time it had done something.