This Tuesday evening had something of the calm before the storm. One might have expected ten green homilies, ten smooth tales, ten certainties. But in the very first seconds, a paradox appeared on the screen: a packet of cigarettes. William Meyer, from Heintz van Landewyck, doesn’t skirt around anything: talking about sustainability when you’re building tobacco is something of an oxymoron. But his phrase sums up the evening’s shift: “You don’t extract value, you transmit it.” Tobacco is not sustainable, nor does it claim to be; the company, on the other hand, can be more sustainable. Some of the figures he mentions – such as the increase in plastic recycling from around 60% to 98% – are based on his own internal reporting. Other comments are his own interpretation, such as the idea that good regulations act like “wheels on a bicycle”. But the idea structures the statement: it is not the object that is sustainable, it is the way it is produced, organised, employed, transformed.
The company, he recounts, has halved the footprint of its factory in 2019, optimised waste to the point of building combustible bricks and imagined a product with no tobacco, no plastic, no batteries, with an integrated dustbin. According to him, this product will soon be banned in the Grand Duchy. A reminder that sustainability is not a straight line, but a regulated trajectory, sometimes coherent, sometimes contradictory. The common thread is clear: sustainability is not a moral code. It is a political economy.
This theme takes on another dimension when Sébastien Wiertz, from Paul Wurth, talks about steel. He starts from a commonly accepted fact: the steel indusattempt is a major emitter of CO2. The blast furnace, often depicted as a vestige of a brown era, nevertheless produces a valuable co-product: slag. When mixed with cement, it assists reduce construction emissions. Wiertz talks of 20-30% CO2 savings when slag is applyd. The idea, however, is structurally coherent: to transform an industrial residue into a resource. He also argues that you can’t close all blast furnaces without having sufficient quantities of high-quality scrap. The middle way he describes – capturing and reutilizing CO2 in integrated systems – illustrates another idea of the evening: sustainability is less about giving up than working with existing constraints.
Production taken elsewhere
Another blind spot appears with Joost van Oorschot, from Maana Electric. He talks about how Europe likes to congratulate itself on having reduced its industrial emissions, even though a significant part of this reduction could come from shifting production to Asia. His reasoning is clear: if you claim to be building progress on climate modify by relocating production, the atmosphere won’t validate your record. He claims to be working on a process that would cut silicon emissions by a factor of five while lowering production costs, which, if true, would illustrate the general logic of the evening: without competitiveness, sustainability does not win the market. Conversely, without minimum requirements, it becomes disguised dumping. What emerges is the idea of a Europe that has to arbitrate between climate ambitions and maintaining an industrial base.
The next voice, that of Jane Feehan, a biologist at the European Investment Bank, shifts the framework even further. She introduces the concept of planetary limits, a scientific framework that actually exists. She explains that several critical limits have been exceeded, turning climate, water, soil and ecosystems into tangible economic risks. She mentions the fact that, in her view, a majority of companies in the eurozone are heavily depfinishent on ecosystem services, with direct implications for bank portfolios. The link she establishes between ecology and credit risk is part of a trfinish observed in European finance. Sustainability thus ceases to be a moral conscience and becomes a measurable risk.
Sigridur Torfadottir, Head of Fund Management Services at Innpact, discussed three financial tools to reduce the gfinisher gap in access to venture capital. (Photo: Julian Pierrot / Paperjam)
This theme echoes Sigridur Torfadottir, Head of Fund Management Services at Innpact, who talks about sustainable finance from a gfinisher equality perspective. She recalls the Icelandic women’s strike in 1975 and its subsequent political effects. How she relates this episode to the contemporary notion of ‘gfinisher finance’ is open to interpretation, but her findings – for example, the very low proportion of venture capital going to women – are plausible. She describes three financial tools designed to reduce these gaps: a health fund for women and children, a global pro-equality fund via financial institutions, and a support mechanism for female fund managers in Africa. She sums up: closing the gfinisher gap is not a moral act, but an economic strategy.
Catering and craft industries grappling with realities
Then the floor comes down, literally, with Clémentine Venck, from Cocottes. Her starting point is the findings of the catering sector: a significant proportion of the world’s food waste comes from this segment. Her operational story is precise. Cocottes has developed an in-hoapply digital tool for tracking orders, production and sales; she mentions the installation of connected waste bins for detailed measurement of losses. She explains how this data builds it possible to adjust supplies and reduce losses, while maintaining the quality of the dishes. She also describes the Cocotte Academy, a digital training platform, and a programme enabling customers to donate their loyalty points to necessaryy beneficiaries via an association. These actions illustrate a clear dynamic: sustainability becomes a combination of productivity, training and meaning.
Tom Wirion, from the Chambre des Métiers, brings sustainability down to an even more human scale. He describes the craft indusattempt as a fabric of 10,000 businesses and 130 trades in Luxembourg. He distinguishes between “lived sustainability” – proximity, repair, prolonged apply – and “proven sustainability”, which requires indicators, forms and regulatory compliance. His criticism of “green bureaucracy” is part of his analysis, but reflects a real tension in SMEs. He deffinishs sustainability on a “human scale”, which creates value rather than an administrative burden. The central idea dovetails with the one that runs through the evening: sustainability is not theoretical perfection but continuous progress.
Ljiljana Vidovic, from Metaform, scratched at “labels” and “archi-washing”, which tick boxes without considering the full life cycle of buildings. (Photo: Julian Pierrot / Paperjam)
With Ljiljana Vidovic, from Metaform, the narrative returns to how sustainability is embodied in the city. She criticises “labels” and “archi-washing”, which tick boxes without considering the full life cycle. She describes a certified tower block that consumes more energy than a non-certified building of the same size. She presents projects involving the recovery of materials and co-creation with children, as well as approaches aimed at reducing a building’s unnecessary layers. Her message, unverified in her specific examples, touches on a broader reality: sustainability is measured not just in equipment but in applys, in liveable density, in the capacity of places to evolve.
Julie Schadeck, from UNature, almost closes the cycle by talking about emotion. She describes the exhaustion caapplyd by guilt-inducing stories. She speaks of a “love letter” written to a living person from whom we have become disconnected. She quotes Jane Goodall and argues that hope is a more powerful engine than guilt. Her call to re-establish a relationship rather than accumulate injunctions complements the economic-industrial observations built at the launchning: there can be no transition without emotional support.
Finally, Paul Zens, from Eurosolar, brings the debate back to energy. He claims that internal combustion cars burn more than electric cars, that batteries have a very long lifespan, and that half of the roofs equipped in Luxembourg would cover more than half of the counattempt’s energy demand. His central argument, however, is clear: decentralised energy production – domestic solar, self-consumption, heat pumps, energy communities – is a source of resilience and economic leverage. He also describes the rapid evolution of energy communities. The thread he weaves ties in with that of the other speakers: sustainability becomes profitable as soon as it brings production and apply closer toreceiveher.
When the room lights up again, we realise that these ten stories do not offer a coherent picture of sustainability, but a polygon of contradictions, adjustments, systems under tension. Tobacco wants to do better while being banned. Steel is reducing its footprint thanks to a waste product. Europe is reducing its emissions by relocating production. Banks discover planetary limits through their credit risks. The catering indusattempt is reducing its losses thanks to connected dustbins. Craftsmen have always practised sustainability, but are struggling to prove it. Architecture sometimes dresses up in green without altering its practices. Domestic solar energy is becoming a family micro-indusattempt. And in the middle, a voice reminds us that we cannot protect what we no longer feel connected to.
This mosaic, taken toreceiveher, draws out a message: sustainability is neither pure virtue nor pure technique. It is a set of compromises, trade-offs, material constraints, emotions, regulations, financial risks, industrial opportunities and everyday actions. It progresses not becaapply it is perfect, but becaapply it advances “step by step”, as one speaker summed it up. It is not a moral finish in itself: it is an economic driver, a story to be notified and a practice to be built. Every day, in a kitchen, a workshop, a factory, a bank, an architect’s office or a home equipped with a solar panel.
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