Excursion to Future Cleantech Festival
As part of the seminar Future Clean Industries: Driving High-Impact Innovation to Reduce Emissions, led by Dr. Peter Schniering, founder of Future Cleantech Architects (FCA), students attended the Future Cleantech Architects Festival in Remscheid. The event complemented the seminar by allowing students to experience the technologies, industrial processes, and collaborations driving the clean industrial transition. Highlights included an industrial site visit to KNDS Deutschland Tracks GmbH, where students gained insights into steel recycling, presentations by researchers showcasing novel cleantech solutions, policy discussions on accelerating the deployment of clean technologies, and numerous networking opportunities.
Travelling together by bus between industrial sites, the city hall, and the Solutions Hub created an open and informal atmosphere that encouraged conversations between participants. One student, for example, found themselves seated next to the Director of the Circular Economy and Green Industry Division at the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), illustrating how the festival's unique format made exchanges with international experts both spontaneous and accessible.
Students also connected with fellow participants, including recent graduates from other universities who founded their own cleantech start-ups. One particularly inspiring example was a start-up developing an innovative process that permanently binds CO₂ in solid carbonates for use in the construction industry, reducing emissions while improving the properties of construction materials.
The two-day festival left students with new ideas, valuable professional connections, and a sense that the clean industrial transition is not just a future vision. It is already taking shape through collaboration, innovation, and entrepreneurial action.
For more information visit: https://futurecleantechfestival.org/
Photo credits: Future Cleantech Architects (FCA)
