Headline:
A pioneer with passion – the IASS congratulates its Founding Director Prof. Klaus Töpfer to his 75th birthday
Right on time to his 75th birthday on 29th July 2013, Klaus Töpfer´s book “Verändern durch Wissen” (change through knowledge) is released. This title can be considered to be the guiding principle of his personal life and work and characterizes his driving motivation: To change our action according to the knowledge we have gathered for the sake of the livelihood of future generations. Science, politics and civil society have to interact in order to create a sustainable world. Therefore this guiding principle also works conversely: Knowledge through change; a knowledge that can be achieved in jointly initiated change processes. But these achievements always have to be challenged. This personal conviction is reflected by Klaus Töpfer’s professional career as much as it describes the purpose and intention of the IASS.
In the best means, Klaus Töpfer is a traveler and wanderer between the worlds, who – after a successful time as minister of the environment and director of UNEP – decided in 2009 to establish something completely new; an institute for sustainability studies. He became the pioneer of our Potsdam-based institute and created a national and international platform where scientists from various disciplines come together with experts from politics and civil society. This interactive and transdisciplinary approach is a new way of scientific research. Klaus Töpfer mastered to answer the long going discussion, how we can achieve sustainable development in using an innovative scientific concept. Being a research institute and think tank at the same time, the IASS initiates an intensive dialogue with civil society to interactively involve the expertise of relevant stakeholders into scientific research and at the same time to make research results immediately available and useable for society.
For Klaus Töpfer, sustainability means that the ramifications of our actions whether medium-term or long-term have to be the benchmark of all actions. His time in Africa strongly influenced him and he believes that the sustainable development of society only goes together with protection of creation and the fight against poverty and injustice. As chairman of the ethic´s commission “Security of Energy Supplies” he made it clear from the very beginning that the Energiewende has to be created both ecologically and socially sound. This is also the approach of the newly established scientific platform “Transdisciplinary Panel on Energy Change” at the IASS.
Whether in Potsdam or in Shanghai, where the economist is guest professor at the UNEP-Tongji Institute of Environment for Sustainable Development since 2007, as patron or through his many voluntary commitments – step by step and with all his passion Klaus Töpfer initiates benchmarking changes for the future. Wholeheartedly, we all wish him all the best to his anniversary according to the Chinese proverb: "to touch stone by stone when crossing the river and therefore reaching safely new shores on the long run".