(3/3) Internship at the Institute for Ecological Economy Research (IÖW)

My internship came officially to an end. I am very thankful for all the insights I got especially under those circumstances of a pandemic. During the last weeks, when being at the office, I realized that it makes such a huge difference to be physically present at an institute: communication ways are shorter, it is easier to get in contact with other employees and interns from other projects and working together at one place makes a truly interdisciplinary exchange possible. I am very thankful that I got the chance to experience office live even if it was only for a month. The last weeks of my internship had been very intense. I conducted ten interviews, sometimes three interviews per day, though it showed me that it was the right choice to undertake my field study in collaboration with a well-known and established institute. Enterprises were easier approachable, and the practical part of the project made it sometimes easier for my interview partners to answer my questions. Therefore, I could collect a rich material that has to be transcribed and analyzed during the upcoming weeks and I am excited to share the results not only during the final presentation but also with the Institute of Economic studies in August. I want to say thank you again, for giving me the opportunity to conduct my own research and the trust that was given to me from the institute. I want to emphasize that it is not self-evident to welcome, offline and online, interns in times of a pandemic. 

Next to my research the internship made me realize to focus more on the political dimension of sustainability. There is this tendency of enterprises complaining that there are not enough rules and regulations when it comes to sustainability although there are. I also missed out to study these regulations during my studies. There is a political framework in place but if managers do not know about it and therefore do not implement it, it remains meaningless. We must start to think about how to interpret the possibly upcoming Supply Chain Law and how to incorporate the European Action Plan for Circular Economy next to the European Packaging Directive into the corporate context. Laws and regulations must be translated into the reality of enterprises and should not remain on the paper.