oikos Spring Meeting 2013 in Maastricht. oikos’ biggest project has, also this year, come to an end. The organising team in Maastricht hopes to have left a touch of sustainable investors in all the participants. Read all about it!
The participants of the oikos Spring Meeting 2013 have all officially departed and beautiful memories are left in the air of Maastricht. The Chief Organiser, Anita Negri, had started off the conference by stating that the “Spring Meeting is a unique event, and it was an honour to organise it”. By virtue of the participants the turn-out was, in fact, unique. The theme of sustainable investment was embraced by the vast combination of activities. Participants had the opportunity to explore and reflect on various elements of this theme, ranging from local responsible shops, micro-finance, green real estate, speculation and commodities and behaviour of responsible investment to the European Sustainable Investment Forum policies. Activities that deserve a highlight are the green4equity workshop, Eco-map tours and the themed workshops with their projects shaping for the sustainability competition. With respect to this, we would like to congratulate the ‘speculation/commodities workshop group’ who won the Spring Meeting 2013 competition. The strengthening of the oikos community was not overlooked. In Maastricht, three chapters were given the status of official Full Chapters: Penn, Paderborn and Tübingen. Moreover, there was an intention to create continuity after the Spring Meeting. This was fulfilled with the future elaboration of the ‘speculation/commodities group’ project, or the cross- chapter cooperation on the topic of eco-fashion, which will keep the members in touch.
Following the slogan of the 2013 Spring Meeting, sustainability played a central role. Vegetarian options were always provided, only tap water was served, all food products were local, only recycled paper was used, the hostel had the unique EU eco-label and all places were reached by foot or by bike. The international aspect was also satisfied by the presence of 33 nationalities and experts from all over the world. The final aspect, networking, entailed the exchange of ideas, the sharing of knowledge and the development of new plans. Opportunities to experience this were during the Project Fair, networking lunches, drafting the projects for the competition and the peer2peer workshops.
At the end of the Spring Meeting, Anita, stressed the importance of keeping in touch, making the most of the incredible oikos network and enriching ourselves day by day through our projects. The Spring Meeting in Maastricht will not easily be forgotten!
