greenXchange 2015 – German-Israeli Sustainability Program for Young Professionals

Sustainability and the environment are and have always been of great importance as far as tasks relating to infrastructure and supply are concerned, both in the whole world and thus also in Germany and Israel. Each different location poses different challenges even as they still overlap, rendering long-term observation and knowledge transfer thus all the more important. This is precisely the point at which the Israeli and German participants of this year’s greenXchange program get started: what can they glean from how the projects conceived the previous year in Germany are now being set up in Israel, what conclusions can be drawn, and how can new solutions to new challenges be developed? Knowledge transfer equally applies to the team itself, with the participants from the year before, who were also involved in putting together this year’s program, being able to link their previous experience to the external perspectives and fresh impulses provided by the new participants. Both are important here – whether for the process of coming together as a working team or for developing new projects on location. 

The itinerary of the trip to Israel includes visits to important organizations working in the supply field, academic institutes, and environmental initiatives as well as meetings with those working at the Israeli environmental ministry and foreign office. The opportunity to exchange ideas in this way forms an important backdrop to what follows: an analysis of the projects already initiated as part of greenXchange and the development of further alternative environmental projects. The best ideas that emerge here are conceived and developed by the participants together with the program organizers, with the perspectives created here extending far beyond the day itself. For in addition to creating bilateral green networks on a general level, the students and young professionals also continue to be involved in developing greenXchange as a multifaceted project platform even after the funding period is over.

greenXchange is a program by the environmental organization Jüdischer Nationalfonds e.V. (KKL-JNF) in collaboration with the Zentralwohlfahrtsstelle der Juden in Deutschland e.V. In 2015, it will be taking place between May 1 and 31 December and offers 26 young German and Israeli professionals and students in the final stages of their studies wide-ranging opportunities within environmental project work. The results of the collaboration will be recorded in a publication and presented on a website and via social media.