Yeah. When is the one adjective that comes to mind when you think about electronics in a car?
The one objective or the one.
Adjective
Yeah, the one adjective. Non standardized. (So why?) Because as I don’t own a car, I have rental cars a lot and I drive with other people’s cars a lot. And whenever you drive a different car, it’s always a new interface. You always have to get used to. Yeah, a new standard because everyone defined their own standard. No one talked to one another. I feel like even though it’s mostly same organizations even. Yeah, yeah.
In your opinion, are cars that include electronic components easier or harder to adapt to circular economy principles than a regular car?
What is a regular car? Could you define that closer
normal car without much electronics?
Oh yeah. Well, as it gets more, I don’t know what the word is. Filigrane. As it gets more, you know, as the parts gets smaller. Yeah, I know that recycling processes get more complicated and homogeneous material streams get more complicated to. To. To to. Mine in a sense, yeah. Um, so I would say it’s probably harder to recycle and to go into circular economy thinking. But a modern car has more electronics, so it’s definitely necessary to to think in these terms as well. Yeah.
Uh, what can the automotive industry do to promote a circular economy in your opinion?
I would say in Germany, the automotive industry is one of the most standardized ones, actually, and one of the most. Okay, maybe not most standardized, but one of the most automated ones and processes are most streamlined. So I feel like there’s many opportunity to, if you identify circular economy as a priority also in production processes to implement that, because the brain power, the process power and all of it, it’s there. So I feel like there’s a lot of potential to go deeper into that. Yeah.
Okay. Do you have concerns about privacy and personal data stored by car electronics, which you are sometimes using? Oh.
Good question. Um, a little anecdote maybe. I remember 2008, I was the first time at the Ford factory in the United States. And then I was told that every new Ford car that is going off out of the plant actually has a GPS tracker and is trackable around the world from. And I found that that thought a little creepy at the time. And I know that every car today is trackable and traceable. Um, do I have concerns I would say in the first place? No. Also because regulatory is quite high and you if it’s about data, especially in the EU, it’s not easy to just go easy about it. And I feel like we need to keep that standard high, even though it’s sometimes dragging because that keeps trust high. And as long as trust is high, people will won’t have trust issues. Yeah, that is my thoughts.
Does recycling and reusing mean different things to you?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. A reuse of things is, um. You know, if I have furniture and I resell it, then the furniture will be used in the same way than before. If it’s a chair, someone will sit on it and won’t use it as a table. Um, if I do recycling, then I have a chair and maybe it’s a wooden chair. And if I recycle it, I take the chair apart and I have different pieces of wood and I just do something else with it. And then you have, you know, you have the apple hierarchy, you have the pyramid of the hierarchy in disposal. You can even burn it. And I don’t know, I think it wouldn’t be recycling, but it would be a terminal reusage of the material. Um, yeah. So but the differentiation is not always very clear when talking in the, um, in the wider context and with people. So I feel like you have to educate about that a lot and every time you talk about it, yeah.
On a scale of 1 to 5, one means not at all concerned and five extremely concerned. How concerned are you about issues of environmental waste and pollution.
Environmental waste and pollution? Oh, a lot because population is growing. So that would be I would say it’s a four because many things are tackable You just you need to do it. You need to get to it. Yeah. Yeah.
What, if any, actions do you take in your life to promote sustainability?
Oh, I don’t own a car. Um, I. I actually, I travel mostly by train, and it’s not always possible. I sometimes fly as well, to be honest. I think food is a big leverage. I do eat meat, but I try to be very reflective about my choices when when, when eating meat, looking at where is it coming from and how often do I consume what else in private life? I think it’s also very many little things, to be honest. Um, taking your own bags, shutting the light when you leave a room. It’s all the things that don’t have a big impact but make a difference because these are the ones that you can influence yourself. Yeah.
How much responsibility does each individual have to make lifestyle and consumer choices that help protect the environment?
I take the scale again. Five. I mean, we always blame others and when we talk about impact and choices and things, but if we don’t start ourselves, if we don’t walk the talk ourselves and live by a good example, we can’t expect it from anybody else. So how no matter how small the difference is, it’s the difference that we can make. And this is the responsibility that we have to live by. Yeah.