RTL Group | Potsdam, 08/02/2018

Sustainability and Environmental Protection Via Youtube

WWF Deutschland and the educational initiative “Mesh Collective” of the UFA label UFA X launched the “#EarthOvershootDay” campaign yesterday together with Youtubers, scientists and teens. Successful Youtubers discuss various topics in their videos relating to the sustainable handling of the planet’s limited resources.

Yesterday was “Earth Overshoot Day”, which means that for the rest of the year we are basically living on credit on our planet. “Earth Overshoot Day” symbolically marks the day of the year when people have used up all of the natural resources that the earth can sustainably provide for a year. In order to highlight this problem, WWF Deutschland and the educational initiative “Mesh Collective” of the UFA label UFA X together with Youtubers, scientists and teens launched the “#EarthOvershootDay” campaign yesterday.

Successful Youtubers address various issues in their videos under the overarching question of how people can sustainably live with the planet’s limited resources. The topics were developed in a workshop beforehand by a group of teens who are committed to the environment.

“Focus on Environmental Topics through Social Videos”

“Sustainability, the preservation of resources and our planet, is an extreme matter of the heart for ‘Mesh Collective’ as a topic and field of activity. We are appropriately pleased that we can focus on environmental topics through social videos as part of this campaign and reach those who have not really thought about their CO2 footprint or environmental behavior before,” said Julia Althoff, Director “Mesh Collective” at UFA X. “Through the social video personalities who participate in the campaign and establish identification and with their strong reach, we playfully give initial stimuli to viewers and, at the same time, present well-defined possibilities for taking action.”

“We bring our earth to the limit and hence ourselves and following generations. Therefore, we have to change our behavior together now. Since young people are especially concerned by the decisions we make today, we target them with our campaign and unite youth, science and influencers,” added Bettina Münch-Epple, education expert of WWF Deutschland. “It is our goal to give youths a voice: The Youtubers prepare their most pressing questions. They received support from science to do it. Given all the false statements by climate skeptics, et. al., it is even more important to spread science facts across society. Prepared like this, we can jointly counter the overuse of our planet.”

Collaboration with Teens, Scientists and Youtubers

For the “#EarthOvershootDay” sponsored by the Robert Bosch Stiftung, teens developed topics that they especially care about in a workshop – everything under the overarching question: How do I live within the limits of the planet? In a second step, scientists picked up these topics and the joint input went to the Youtubers. Each of them now deals with one of the topics in a video.

Yesterday, on “Earth Overshoot Day”, Mr. Trashpack kicked off the campaign. On his Youtube channel he examines CO2 emissions, discusses weather extremes and spends 24 hours in the wilderness. More videos on plastic in the oceans, meat consumption, sustainable fashion, recycling economy and glacial melting will be regularly added over the next year. Along with Mr. Trashpack, the Youtubers Breeding Unicorns, De Changeman, Niksda, RobBubble, I’m Jette, Typisch Sissy, Dillan White and Fräulein Chaos participate in the campaign. 

About “Earth Overshoot Day”

“Earth Overshoot Day” was initiated by the organization Global Footprint Network. To determine the date, the experts calculate the number of days the earth’s natural resources can provide to offset the environmental footprint of the human population. The environmental footprint is a value that indicates how much of the planet’s surface one person consumer with his or her lifestyle.