The short, intense course will generate awareness regarding opportunities and challenges correlated to the process of implementing sustainability in industries and societies, i.e., fostering the postulated ‘green transition’. The last decade has generated a huge amount of knowledge regarding sustainable use of resources, energies and processing. Implementation of this knowledge requires an awareness and common fundamental knowledge of associated theoretical and practical aspects across various scientific areas and fields, requiring a close networking between natural sciences, sociology, economy and law in shortest time frames. The following points will be exemplary covered:

• Intercept points of biorefinery concepts with current industrial production schemes.
• Modern energy harvesting and storage options.
• Business models connected to exploiting renewable resources.
• Concept of carbon footprint and methods for quantification.
• Tools for monitoring impact of exploitation of renewable and sustainable resources and energies on current business models.

Target audience: PhD students of all disciplines directly or indirectly concerned with the necessary ecologic change of modern societies.

The topics will be treated also in form of case studies: short introduction into the case by the lecturer, followed by elaboration of the cases in team-work, presentation/discussion of results.

The language and the level of details will be tailored to the specific needs of the actual audience that will be evaluated at the beginning of the course; eventual knowledge differences will be accounted for by immedi-ate interventions by the lecturer and in form of background material made available via the e-learning platform prior to the lectures.

Active participation in group work and during final discussion of cases is required for successful participation