Annual conference 2022

Future conference on a sustainable society – acting for change

Annual conference of the International Erich-Fromm-Gesellschaft e.V., in cooperation with the Evangelische Akademie Hofgeismar, June 03 to June 05, 2022 at the Evangelische Akademie Hofgeismar

The aim of the weekend conference, jointly organized by the Evangelische Akademie Hofgeismar and the International Erich-Fromm-Gesellschaft, is to critically discuss the possibilities and limits of sustainable societies.

Registration for the conference directly via the Academy in Hofgeismar: ➜ to registration

Flyer for the conference: ➜ Download

Sustainable societies in the sense of safeguarding and protecting the livelihoods of human and non-human beings have long been a central topic in the socio-political debate in Germany, Europe and worldwide. In numerous international conferences (since Rio de Janeiro in 1992) and many international commission reports (e.g. the Brundtland Commission in 1987), and particularly in the establishment of the IPCC, the International Panel on Climate Change, in 1988, there was not only a growing awareness of the need for “sustainable management and consumption”. As a result, countless international regimes were set up to curb negative environmental effects (e.g. from the containment of “acid rain” to the ban on CFCs, the main cause of the “ozone hole”). Recently, many government programs have even been talking prominently about a “New Green Deal” aimed at a socio-ecological market economy.

Nevertheless, according to a sober assessment, global resource consumption continues to rise, thousands of non-human species are disappearing from the earth forever (loss of biodiversity), soils are silting up, and climate change is more present and tangible than ever before with the recent heatwaves, forest fires and increasing extreme weather events.

Against this backdrop, the conference will address the question of whether sustainability still has a future. It is therefore decidedly not about the question of what threatens us all – that is well known and can be read, watched and listened to live and in real time every day. Instead, our conference in 2022 will reflect on why, despite countless reports, commissions and agendas, so little sustainable transformation has apparently taken place and what needs to be done.

Our speakers approach the challenges from different angles:

• Dipl. Pol. Kai Mosebach provides a thematic outline and places the socio-political developments in Fromm’s radical perspective of a “revolution of hope”
• Prof. Dr. Birgit Mahnkopf questions the conditions for success of a “Green New Deal”
• Prof. Dr. Ingolfur Blühdorn asks which social and political structures prevent a truly sustainable transformation and what needs to be done
• Dr. Rainer Funk uses Fromm’s concept of the social character to ask which inner strivings hinder sustainable action and how this can be counteracted
• Prof. Dr. Burkhard Bierhoff explores the question of the extent to which consumers have the freedom of choice to develop an ecologically sustainable lifestyle
• Dr. Kora Kristof outlines the contours and basic lines of a sustainable environmental policy and asks about the success factors for its implementation
• Prof. Dr. Ernst-Ulrich Weizsäcker calls for nothing less than a “New Enlightenment”.

Conference costs
The conference and accommodation costs at the Evangelische Akademie Hofgeismar for members and interested parties of the Fromm Society (from Friday to Sunday with full board) are € 140 per person in a double room and € 152 in a single room. Members of the Erich-Fromm-Gesellschaft can submit an informal application to the office for a grant of up to €50.