Environmental protection – Act green and talk about it!
How do technology and environmental protection fit together? At the Audi Environmental Foundation, pretty well. Michael Hügel has been with Audi since 2007 and helped set up the foundation. His most important project: sparking enthusiasm for the environment, and doing so without pointing fingers.
“I commute between the office at Audi, my office at home and the outdoors.” No matter where Michael Hügel is working, he likes to be surrounded by nature – whether at local tree-planting campaigns organized by the Audi Environmental Foundation or even in his office at home: He lives in a wooden house. “When we built our house, it was important to me to use mainly renewable building materials,” explains Hügel, for whom environmental protection is much more than just a 9-to-5 job.
Michael Hügel first joined Audi in 2007, at that time as part of the Environmental Management department. His switch to the Four Rings was a very deliberate step: “I knew you could make a difference at a company like Audi.” Even while still working in Environmental Management, Michael Hügel initiated the odd environmental protection project, more or less on the side. “Long before the environment became such a hot topic, my boss and I asked ourselves how we could assume responsibility beyond what was required by laws and regulations.” And so the Audi Environmental Foundation was born.
In 2009, the foundation was established quite deliberately as a non-profit company and a wholly owned subsidiary of AUDI AG. “It was important to us that the name itself clearly reflected the foundation’s focus on nature and environmental issues.”
At the time, establishing a dedicated environmental foundation as a car manufacturer was rather unusual and set the company apart within the industry.
Nature and technology in harmony
Initially, the Audi Environmental Foundation focused on nature-related projects to protect the environment and biodiversity, such as the founding project Oak Forest: “We didn’t just plant trees at random, but asked ourselves together with the Technical University of Munich: How can we plant the trees in such a way that we achieve the highest possible carbon capture while maintaining a high level of biodiversity,” says Hügel. The internationalization of this long-term research approach has so far seen more than 100,000 oak trees planted near the sites in Brussels, Győr, Sant’Agata Bolognese, Neckarsulm, Ingolstadt and San José Chiapa within the scope of scientific studies. Some of them have been fitted with sensors so that the development of the trees can be analyzed without on-site visits. As time went on, more and more projects were added that linked environmental protection with the Audi DNA – and thus also with “Vorsprung durch Technik.” This gave rise, for example, to today’s “Greenovation” action area, which supports projects aimed at developing and testing innovative technological approaches to environmental and nature conservation and making their findings accessible to a wider audience.
For example, under Hügel’s project leadership, the foundation helped the Landesbund für Vogelschutz (LBV) – a Bavarian bird protection organization – advance a stationary telemetry system capable of tracking the whereabouts, activity patterns and mortality events of Eurasian curlew chicks more precisely. The data gathered through this technology enables the LBV to develop more targeted conservation measures, such as adjusting mowing schedules, managing visitor access and adapting habitats. As part of a pilot project in the Altmühl Valley, fledglings were fitted with this technology to monitor the birds’ movements and identify targeted protection measures.
“We felt it was important to show that our main priority here is the environment.”
Since 2019, Michael Hügel’s team has been supporting the German-Indian start-up Nunam. Nunam has set itself the task of giving already used lithium-ion batteries a second life – with the objective of identifying and testing new solutions for the reuse of batteries, thus enabling energy storage. The collaboration began with energy storage devices made from used laptop batteries, which were used to light up the fruit stalls of street vendors in India. In the latest project milestone, Nunam has built a stationary energy storage device for a rickshaw charging station in India using battery modules from decommissioned test vehicles. The e-rickshaws can be charged there via a solar-powered charging infrastructure. The initiative is intended to help improve the mobility of rural production communities and create additional income opportunities, particularly for indigenous women.
Another project that Michael Hügel is very proud of stands on the wooden shelf in his office at home, in between environmental reference books. It has 145 pages, was produced according to the rules of the circular economy and is 100% recyclable: the Greenovation book.
Anyone can join in
“The future interests me – I’m going to spend the rest of my life there.” These words by Mark Twain adorn the first page of the Greenovation book. “50 ideas and technologies for a livable future” (the book’s subtitle) as well as everyday life hacks are featured in this guide to environmental awareness, plus plenty of other inspiring topics: How to properly upcycle waste products (i.e., turn them into like-new products). Smart ways to save water. And what technology can learn from nature. The book was created under the leadership of Michael Hügel. “Initiating projects isn’t the only thing that’s important to me. Our aim is to create awareness and spark enthusiasm for environmental protection, but to do so undogmatically and without pointing fingers. The company offers a very good platform for this. True to the motto: Act green and talk about it.”