As Istanbul Medeniyet University, we held our first Sustainability Week events in 2021. Under the guidance of Rector Prof. Dr. Gülfettin ÇELİK, the events were planned and organized by IMU International Performance Development Center and Medeniyet Gemisi student club and included 11 speakers, one workshop and a trip held throughout the week of 20-24 December with around 1350 participants. Aiming to seek answers to the question “How can we leave a more livable, more sustainable, and self-sufficient world to future generations?”, IMU Sustainability Week focused on the concept of sustainability that has become a hot topic in the post-pandemic world in its various dimensions from energy, health, food, and cuisine to finance, water resources, and industry, all discussed in depth by field experts.
On its first day on 20 December 2021, IMU Sustainability Week started with the opening remarks by Rector Prof. Dr. Gülfettin ÇELİK, who talked about the historical background of Easter Island natives who recklessly destroyed their natural resources and condemned themselves to poverty and primitiveness over the centuries and highlighted the lessons we need to learn from their story today. He thanked all the event organizers and participants and said: “This series of meetings organized as part of the Sustainability Week may be the spark that will enable us to realize ourselves and to better construct and understand our future.” In his presentation on “sustainable energy”, Prof. Dr. İbrahim DİNÇER, a faculty member of Ontario Tech and Yıldız Technical Universities, underlined our pressing need to quit using fossil fuels and shift to sustainable energy in parallel with the rapidly increasing amount of energy consumed by humans per capita, a shift that has already been accelerated by the pandemic. DİNÇER said, “Hydrogen can be used as a fuel, as an energy carrier, and as a raw material source. We are now going into the hydrogen era.” And provided information about the current projects for hydrogen production and examples of integrated systems from Turkey and the world where sustainable energy is used. The second speaker of the first day was Prof. Dr. Erhan AKDOĞAN, President of the Health Institutes of Turkey (TUSEB) and faculty member of Yıldız Technical University, who focused on “sustainability in healthcare” in his speech. He discussed the development of health technologies in Turkey in the context of sustainability, underlining that the COVID-19 pandemic has clearly showed the world the importance of sustainability in health, science, and technology by saying “During the pandemic, concepts such as domestically produced vaccines, ventilators, and diagnostic kits have come to a completely different point.” AKDOĞAN then provided information about TUSEB’s R&D activities concerning vaccines and medicines and the point reached in the development process of the COVID-19 vaccine.
On the second day of the Sustainability Week, Dr. Kamil KILIÇ, Chief Executive Officer of Letven Capital, delivered a speech on “green finance”, in which he emphasized that a transformation is underway from the concept of sustainable finance 1.0 and from the conventional finance understanding where the value produced is measured only in money to an understanding that is defined not only by money but also by intellectual, social, and environmental values. KILIÇ said, “The system of making money from money in the world has begun to collapse; this is the reason for the high inflation rates.” and underlined the importance of raising businessmen in our country with a good understanding of the world who can keep up with the current global trends where there is a shift toward green bonds in the global finance sector. In the workshop on renewable and clean energy production that followed, the participants played a role game called ”ElectriCITY: Energy Preferences Game”, in which they could generate energy policies as decision makers in the energy production of the city. In the game moderated by Res. Asst. Ayça ÇELİKBİLEK of IMU Department of Urban and Regional Planning and Geological Engineer Gökhan SAPMAZ, the participants were provided with information about the basic concepts such as energy management in cities, fossil fuels, renewable energy sources, and energy efficiency and gained an understanding of the challenges and tradeoffs in making energy and policy decisions in a fun environment. Day 2 ended with a presentation on “food sustainability” delivered by Abdurrahman KAAN, Executive Board Member in Kaanlar Corporate Group and 6th President of MUSIAD (Independent Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association). KAAN focused on topics such as the long-term sustainability of the supply chain, the massive losses suffered in the process of delivering vegetables and fruits to the consumers in Turkey, the importance of packaging and recycling, the Green Deal model, and life in the countryside. He said that food and healthcare are highlighted in the post-pandemic world and underlined the importance protecting the organic composition of the soil to achieve sustainability in food production as well as our duty to respect the biological limits of earth, water, and biological diversity.
On the third day, we hosted Prof. Dr. Hasan MANDAL, President of TUBITAK (Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey), who delivered a presentation titled “Co-Development and Co-Achievement toward a Sustainable Future and Green Transition”, in which he shared with the audience the global risk landscape of the next decade and underlined that environmental risks such as climate action failure, biodiversity loss, and crises in natural resources can only be overcome through the “co-development and co-achievement” approach. MANDAL discussed all these global risks and related scenarios one by one and said: “The multidisciplinary solutions deployed during the global pandemic are also to be deployed for the Sustainable Development Goals until 2030 with the same speed and focus.” Lect. Merve MANDAL YAMAN of IMU Tourism Faculty, Department of Gastronomy and Culinary Arts delivered a presentation on “Green Kitchen”, in which she sought answers to the question “How can we achieve sustainability in the kitchen as we do in all other areas?” by focusing on the current threats to the catering sector as well as hunger, diseases, lack of drinking water, and food waste due to unfair use of resources. With regard to sustainable food, she expounded on various innovative approaches toward sustainable food such as digital technologies, the internet of things, smart kitchen appliances, compost production, vertical farming, foodbanks, and the “green kitchen” concept and provided examples of green generation restaurants from Turkey and around the world. In his speech on “Sustainability in Textiles”, Vehbi CANPOLAT, President of the Textile Finishing Industrialists Association of Turkey (TTTSD) and Member of the Board of Directors of Istanbul Chamber of Industry, mentioned the importance of textiles in Turkey’s industry and Turkey’s leading position in the global textile industry. He pointed out that textile industry is one of the sectors that cause the highest amount of environmental pollution in the world and provided important information about the amount of water and energy consumed and the amount of chemicals released into the environment throughout the production processes of textiles from making cotton into fiber to spinning, weaving, and finishing of fabrics. CANPOLAT discussed solutions such as shifting to renewable energy sources in all production processes, treatment and reuse of water polluted with chemicals, and recycling worn clothes, underlining that making textile production sustainable has also become economically imperative now with the implementation of Taxing Carbon at the Border, which was brought to the agenda with Paris Agreement. The last speaker of Day 3 was Prof. Dr. Barış ÇALLI of Marmara University, who delivered a presentation on “Sustainability and the Green Deal” focusing on the greenhouse gases that are the cause of global climate change, the fight against climate crisis, and the scope of the Paris Agreement and the European Green Deal. Within this context, he discussed protecting biodiversity, eliminating pollution from field to table, clean energy, sustainable industry, construction and renovation, sustainable and intelligent transportation, and eliminating pollution. He also highlighted the value of compost as a solution to the impoverishment of organic matter in our soil.
On Day 4 of the Sustainability Week, Prof. Dr. Ahmet Mete SAATÇİ, President of the Turkish Water Institute (SUEN), delivered a presentation on the “Water Resources of Istanbul”, in which he defined water as “a heritage that should be protected, defended, and treated” and discussed the pressure on water due to climate change, global warming and drought scenarios, the water shortage predicted for Turkey in the coming decades in parallel with the population growth, the amount of water wasted through wild irrigation in agriculture, and the problems caused by salting in soil. He also mentioned the strategical importance of our transboundary water sources and provided valuable information as to how water resources are planned to meet the water needs predicted for Istanbul. In his presentation on “Technological Sustainability in Automotive Industry”, Ahmet Erdem ÖNER, Toyota Toyotetsu Project Management, R&D, and Automation Manager, informed the audience about the Kaizen philosophy as a notion that aims for continuous improvement and how this philosophy is implemented in his company, emphasizing that in this technique, sustainability is achieved by continuously reducing the errors in the system and eliminating waste.
On the last day of the week, we hosted Serkan KELEŞER, ETI Mine Works General Manager and Chairman of the Board of Directors, with his speech titled “Sustainability of the Environment and Natural Resources: The Case of Boron”, in which he informed that boron is a mineral with antibacterial, antifungal, and antiallergic properties that gives strength to every product it is added to and Turkey has 73 percent of the total boron reserves in the world, noting that as a company, they have taken significant steps towards increasing our share of sales in the global boron market up to a point equaling our reserve rate. He introduced their projects and activities to produce value-added products such as boric acid, armor, and lithium, all of which are of greater financial value and are obtained through recycling of the liquid and solid wastes generated during boron production, underlining that the projects and support of universities are greatly needed in the R&D processes for such products.
You can view our Sustainability Week booklet here to obtain more information on all the events.
