Eco Heroes present their rich arsenal of ecopreneurial ideas and business cases that are worth to further develop.

Why is Eco News needed? - What are the problems?

Empowered readers can find solutions to global problems such as protecting nature, ecosystems, and human life on Earth, which got endangered because of insane and wrongly coordinated human actions. Humans became a natural power being able to substantially shape the Earth. Human traces will be retrievable in the far-future, which is why this era is called Anthropocene. This fact is the reason, why humans are responsible for their actions, decisions, and opinions that lead to decisions and actions.

Humans do have some "weaknesses", for example, their attention is finite. Currently, news providers fight for this attention, and as the record shows, they end up applying tricks, such as fake and slanted news, to disrupt attention and to reinforce a certain mind set. This is profitable, because it is exploitable: where the attention is, there the energy and money goes. Nobody does this, because of being "evil". It is rational in the current economic and legal system to act like this. The created environment and news providing standards deliver the incentives.

How about starting to change the toxic environment and outdated standards?

Suppose, the economic and legal environment is created in a way that incentivizes the "rational" in humans, rather than the "insane". The Earth would become a livable place (ecologically, economically, and socially) where it's nice to be for everyone.

How to start the change?

By design. By behavioural design, that can be applied on news consumption. Thanks to a clever design, individual readers, who pay monthly subscriptions, become empowered and start to demand more high quality news. Thus, crowds can bundle their pressure on news providers, politicians, and the industry to deliver rational reporting and rational solutions. The best: such design can be made transparent, as there is no reason not to be rational, responsible, trustworthy, democratic, and globally inclusive. Eco News serve collective and natural purposes.

Our work examines anthropo-entomophagy, the consumption of insects by humans, as an alternative protein source amidst the projected global food scarcity due to the steep population increase and the environmental challenges posed by conventional livestock farming. While the larger scope of literature on entomophagy in western countries, published during the past five years, concentrates on individual aspects, this study aims to provide an overview of the main factors influencing the contribution of entomophagy as a protein source of the future. Focusing on the industrial production of insects for western markets, the study analyzes their ecological, nutritional, psychological, sociological and economic impacts compared to beef, pork, and chicken, based on a thorough literature research.

Insects show lower environmental impact and efficient resource utilization. They offer comparable or better nutritional profiles and potential disease resistance. However, societal acceptance in Europe remains a challenge, requiring further research on overcoming food neophobia and income effects. Despite a promising 30% annual growth rate, higher production costs affect the competitiveness of entomophagy. We conclude with recommendations for ecopreneurs, policymakers, and consumers to unlock the potential of entomophagy for sustainable food security. Ecopreneurs should emphasize product development and marketing strategies to address societal rejection and reduce prices. Policymakers can promote entomophagy through information campaigns and regulations ensuring food safety standards. Consumers can contribute by engaging with provided information and sampling entomophagy products to explore their long-term potential. Overall, industrialized entomophagy presents an innovative solution to global food security and sustainability, with actionable recommendations to overcome existing challenges. Embracing entomophagy as an integral part of our food system holds the key to addressing the pressing challenges of population growth and environmental sustainability.

In this work, the concept of permaculture will be integrated in a business model to present a possible approach for encountering the climate problems in Germany. It is highly important to address the current climate problems in Germany, since the average temperature increased up to 10,5 degrees Celsius in the year 2022, which is one of the warmest years to date since the start of the weather records in 1881 (DWD, 2022). The increased temperature especially endangers the economy (loss of 100 billion euro (EEAa, 2023)), lives (death of 10,000 humans (EEAb, 2023)), and agriculture (loss of 422 million euro (NOZ, 2018)). Especially the North German Plain suffers from drought (DWD, 2023). Besides this, there is a lack of studies about permaculture applications and their business models in the current literature. Therefore, the given work presents permaculture as a possible framework to encounter the current climate problems in Germany and uses a conceptual method to develop a BioPerma seal to support the implementation of permaculture. Furthermore, this work provides a better understanding of potential implementation challenges. The findings of the work are that permaculture lacks visibility in Germany, though it is an appropriate possibility to address the agricultural challenges. The flexible adaptation of permaculture allows an individual implementation in different regions and areas. Furthermore, permaculture holds various benefits for agriculture, economy, and society.  The work suggests applying permaculture in different regions to identify potential differences in the implementation and sequentially, derive a broader concept which is more generalizable. Lastly, this work should be of interest for students, academics, farmers, politicians, and practitioners engaged in climate change solutions and agricultural development.

Recommendation of the German Society for Nutrition:

• Plant-based diet with low meat consumption

• Guideline for weekly meat consumption: 300-600 grams

• Red and processed meats are particularly harmful to health: consumption in moderate amounts is recommended.

How can I eat in a more climate-friendly way without giving up anything or severely restricting myself?

• Healthy varied diet

• Seasonal & Regional

• Throw away less

• Food Science

Useful links:

• https://iamhngry.com/en/

• https://interaktiv.tagesspiegel.de/lab/co2-bilanz-von-essen-der-klimarechner-fuer-deine-kueche/

• https://www.wwf.ch/sites/default/files/doc-2017-08/2014-01-saisontabelle.pdf

Conclusion: Adjusting consumption leads to a saving of up to 878.12 kg of CO2 emissions annually, depending on the diet chosen. Diet accounts for 15% of emissions in Germany, and changing your diet can help reduce this. However, it should be noted that other factors, such as private consumption, have a higher impact on emissions. To reduce one's emissions, working on several points simultaneously is essential. This is the only way to save the climate in the long term.

Problem: In Germany, households waste as many chicken yearly as London has residents.

Suggested solution: Weekly meal plan to use the whole chicken

Since poultry is the only meat that has no cancer risk relationship and is the most environmentally friendly, the term paper in this Master´s seminar is about the whole use of a chicken within a week. In addition to the popular components such as breast, wings and legs, the other components are also characterized by good and sometimes better nutritional balances.

When implementing it, a certain suitability for everyday use and the corresponding public perception must be ensured. Models like "Hello Fresh" would be good here, so that the whole chicken, already cut up, including recipes and ingredients, can be bought for a whole week.

However, meat-free days are also important for health reasons, and meat consumption must be reduced overall in order to counteract climate change. Thus, the whole use is a good contribution to a more efficient chicken industry.

A weekly meal plan in which as many parts of a chicken as possible are used: