This week Iron & Earth’s Executive Director Luisa Da Silva is part of an international group in Germany looking at that country’s move towards greater energy diversification and a more sustainable economy.

Germany has been one of the world leaders in energy transition and has reached the point where there is no more black coal mining and lignite open pit mining will soon be coming to an end. Like Canada’s oil and gas sector which built our economic wealth, generations of German workers went into mines and made a living and grew the economy as they dug out coal and made steel. Now a cultural tradition has started to change within a generation.

A younger generation is making the move to a more renewable economy and much of the transition’s success comes down to involving communities and workers in the shift. A practice that should sound familiar if you follow our work here at Iron & Earth.

International participants in the German Foreign Office sponsored tour are bringing their experience to Germany to help inform the ongoing transition, and will bring lessons from the German experience back to their respective countries.

Marc Eichhorn is the German Consul General in Canada and his office helped organize the Structural Change tour for the international participants.

He talked with freelance broadcaster Don Hill about the tour and about what the German experience has been like in a global economy experiencing a major change.