International Week. Prof. Dr. Leif Fornauf

Vol. 26, Issue 07, 10 November 2023

International Week is a wonderful opportunity for each student to present their country, cultures, tell customs and try different food. Each lesson at the university was conducted by representatives from different countries, but the most impressive performance was a story about sustainability in supply chain. Professor for Sustainability in Logistics and Supply Chain Management at University of Applied Science Mittelhessen Leif Fornauf shared his knowledge and experience in this field.

The topic of sustainability in the supply chain is of concern to every company and very interesting and important in the modern world. This means a continuous and reliable process of providing products or services from suppliers to buyers. A stable supply chain is important to ensure the normal functioning of the business and to meet the needs of customers. It is also important not only modernity, but also the full history of how it originated, what discoveries and research were made so that we would understand what path was passed to achieve what we have now. There are 3P – people, planet and profit – are intertwined with sustainability. But in fact, this is exactly the case. People improve their skills and employability, which leads to stable earnings and poverty reduction in countries. Environmental protection contributes to environmental stability. Speaking of profit, sustained economic growth contributes to economic stability.

Leif Fornauf started the popular topic of globalization. He told in detail what it is, although we are all already familiar with it. To describe it briefly, globalization is a process of integration and interaction of economies, cultures, technologies and social relations of different countries on a global scale. Considering the pros and cons of globalization, it is impossible to say unequivocally what the advantages will be and on which side because everything depends on a certain situation and conditions. However, globalization consists of a positive way, because our future is behind it, it cannot be avoided.

The next most positive aspect was the story about ecology and footprint. In fact, the topic of ecology has been of interest to many people for a long time. Students participated in a survey and answered questions related to our use of electricity, how much garbage they generate, how much they fly by plane and others. This allowed them to find out how many planets would be needed if people lived like each of them. My result was 4 planets, however, other students had fewer positive results.

Regarding ecology, people should think more often about the impact they have on nature, air and water. People need to use less fuel cars in their daily lives to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Thus, this lesson was very informative and interesting. Everyone learned a lot of new information and it also made think about the growing problems of our time.