Every year on April 22, the World Earth Day is celebrated in over 190 countries with more than 1 billion participants which makes it the largest global civic observance. Year after year, a new focus is set. This year’s motto „Restore our earth“ aims at emphasizing the potential of natural systems, developing green technologies, and innovative ideas that can revive the world’s ecosystems
What is the Earth Day?
In 1970, the first Earth Day was celebrated as a student movement in the United States. The movement not only mobilized students, over 22 million people took part. This demonstration was a first strong signal to politics and to the public that there is an increasing public consciousness about the state of the earth. The participants demanded to prioritize environmental protection. Since then, each year on April 22, million people and organizations in many countries around the world have been demonstrating for environmental protection. As a result, many important environmental laws in the US and other countries were passed. In addition, the Earth Day influenced the perception of many people on a local and global scale towards environmental topics.
Motto of the year: Restore our earth – When life on earth goes back to normal, we can´t get back to business-as-usual
Not at least the COVID-19 crisis has demonstrated how our current lifestyle affects our planet. Also, effects of climate change such as droughts and other extreme weather demonstrate how harmful our actions are to the natural environment. But this year´s Earth Day with the motto “Restore Our Earth” reminds us of the possibilities we have to combat the crisis.
It aims to highlight natural systems, developing green technologies, and innovative ideas that can restore the world’s ecosystems. The motto emphasizes that mitigation or adaptation are not the only opportunities to address climate change but that each citizen can contribute to the protection of our planet. Climate change mitigation comprises actions that remove greenhouse gases (GHG) from the atmosphere[1] whereby adaptation means the adjustment in ecological, social, or economic systems to climate change impacts[2].
So, although these two opportunities exist, still everyone should become aware of its capability to make an impact. Every citizen can influence current circumstances being a consumer, a voter, and a member of a community that stands up for a change. It is now time to act, and we only have one planet. This planet provides us the basis for living and the “healthier” it is, the better our living conditions are. Therefore, a transformational change is necessary to restore our “healthy” planet. The World Earth Day reaches out to sectors, industries, stakeholders, and shareholders to take responsibility for the environmental crisis that we are currently facing. But it also calls out to develop and support inventive and innovative answers. This will require movement at all levels, reaching from each citizen and business to cities and governments.
Getting active as a business
DFGE supports you and your company to take action against the environmental crisis. We help you in becoming more sustainable and being part of the movement to restore our earth. While strictly refusing greenwashing, we provide a variety of different services. Our solutions include support in participation in several sustainability/CSR standards and rankings like CDP, UNGC, EcoVadis or GRI, as well as adapting climate friendly business activities via Science-Based Targets and a Climate Neutrality approach.
Fitting to this year’s earth day, Siemens Energy has embarked on a journey to set ambitious SBTi climate protection targets in line with the Paris Climate agreement to underline its climate protection ambitions. Read more in our new Case Study.
If you have further questions, you can contact us via or by phone at +49 8192-99733-20.
[1] IPCC (2021). Working Group III Mitigation of Climate Change. https://www.ipcc.ch/working-group/wg3/. Last access: 07.04.2021
[2] UN (2021). What do adaptation to climate change and climate resilience mean? https://unfccc.int/topics/adaptation-and-resilience/the-big-picture/what-do-adaptation-to-climate-change-and-climate-resilience-mean. Last access: 07.04.2021
