On January 14, 2025, VISIONS OF SUSTAINABILITY showed Nic Balthazar’s DUTY OF CARE – THE CLIMATE TRIALS, the fourth and final film in the climate protection series of the inter- and transdisciplinary ICN research project.

The fourth film screening was once again very well attended. Despite the January cold, many viewers came to Harmonie Kino to see Luc Balthazar’s inspiring documentary Duty of Care about the lawyer Roger Cox, who, together with NGOs and numerous co-plaintiffs, sues the Dutch government and the oil and gas company Shell and wins in court.

As with the three previous film events, visitors were able to share their impressions and attitudes both before and after the film screening via an online survey or a paper questionnaire. This time the focus was on the role of climate lawsuits and climate laws in implementing more climate protection. We have started analyzing the collected data and will publish our first results here on this website.

Diskussion with Hannah Münstermann from the Climate Clinic

In the discussion following the film, Hannah Münstermann from the Climate Clinic e. V. – the first student legal advice for climate and law – helped further elucidate the relevance of the climate lawsuits shown in the film and to understand their further developments since 2021, in particular the decision of an appeal court in the Netherlands, which passed the far-reaching verdict in November 2024 that overturned the climate case against the Shell Group. During the discussion it became clear that the legal process, with all its successes and setbacks, is an important source of inspiration in the social transformation towards a more sustainable society.

In addition, Hannah Münstermann also gave insights into the work of the Climate Clinic, which, in the tradition of American “law clinics” conducts free research for citizens on legal issues in the area of ​​climate protection. The volunteers are allowed to work on legal questions in general, but cannot give consult on ongoing cases or planned legal proceedings. As a follow-up event after the film, Hannah Münstermann offered an in-depth workshop at the Volkshochschule Freiburg the next day.

With this fourth and final film our first series on the topic of climate protection has ended, but the work of the VdN team continues with the workshop “2040 – Nachhaltige Zukunftsvisionen für Freiburg” (in German) on January 23rd, 2025 and our concluding lecture on our current research results on February 3rd, 2025.

The second film series of VISIONS OF SUSTAINABILITY in the coming summer semester will be dedicated to the topic of resources and resource conservation in the areas of agriculture, urban areas and the energy sector. It also deal with questions such as how economies can act more sustainably and how we can develop community-based business models. The online registration system for all film screenings and further events at the Freiburg Adult Education Center is already open. We look forward to seeing many of you again at the first film in the new series – Marc Uhlig’s Unser Boden, Unser Erbe – on April 29th!

VISIONS OF SUSTAINABILITY is an inter- and transdisciplinary research project funded by the Innovation Sustainability Campus (ICN), located at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Non-university cooperation partners include Harmonie Kino, the Volkshochschule Freiburg and Greenmotions. The Freiburg environmental mayor Christine Buchheit has take on the patronage of the project.