Verkehrsbetriebe Zürich (VBZ) will be testing an electrically powered bus on neighborhood bus routes from October 2016. The findings from the two-year trial operation will form the basis for the planned series procurement. The use of the neighborhood eBus is part of the electrification strategy "eBus VBZ": In addition to the procurement of articulated hybrid buses, this also includes the conversion of lines 69 and 80 to trolleybus operation and the lighthouse project "SwissTrolley plus".

Already today, VBZ transports about 80% of its passengers with electronic means of transport, i.e. streetcars and trolleybuses that run on renewable energy from EWZ. VBZ would like to further increase the share of electrically powered vehicles in order to further reduce primary energy consumption, greenhouse gas and noise emissions, and dependence on fossil fuels.

The technological development of eBuses has advanced considerably in recent years and is being closely monitored by VBZ. The deployment on neighborhood bus routes is intended to test the practicality, technical characteristics and operational impact of electrically powered neighborhood buses for Zurich.

Reloading in the garage
The VBZ quarter buses in operation today cover up to 300 km per day. The available storage capacity of the batteries of eBuses available today is not sufficient for a complete daily performance without intermediate charging. For this reason, eBuses must be recharged during use, for example at terminal stops; this requires a special charging infrastructure. Another option is to replace vehicles with low battery levels on a scheduled basis during the day and recharge them in the garage. Since neighborhood buses usually run at less dense intervals, VBZ pursues recharging in the garage. This approach is suitable for neighborhood buses, because mainline charging stations would only be underutilized here.

Hybrid buses as a bridging technology
VBZ's electrification strategy also includes the use of eleven articulated hybrid buses to replace part of the diesel bus fleet. These buses have a partially electric drive train and bridge the gap between conventional diesel buses and electric vehicles. According to experience with a rented hybrid articulated bus, which has been in regular service with VBZ since March 2015, fuel savings of around 25 percent compared to comparable diesel buses are possible. The new articulated hybrid buses will be in service from mid-2017.

Source: VBZ

The extent to which native species are under pressure from habitat changes is illustrated by the newly published Red List of Wood-Dwelling Beetle Species in Switzerland published by the Federal Office for the Environment (Bafu). The findings are alarming: around 46% of the 256 beetle species studied are endangered - i.e. they could become extinct - and a further 18% are potentially so. Compared to the average of endangered species of all animals and plants studied so far (36%), wood-inhabiting beetles are significantly more threatened.

The Red List of Vascular Plants, revised at the same time, also makes one sit up and take notice: 28% of the approximately 2700 native plant species, which include flowering plants, ferns, clubmosses and horsetails, are endangered, 16% potentially so. Compared with the last assessment in 2002, the deterioration has been slowed somewhat for only one-third of the species then at risk, while over 200 species are in worse condition today. This sobering assessment shows that the conservation and promotion of native species requires continued and increased attention.

Species need enough habitats with quality

Each species needs suitable habitats, which, however, are impaired in their quality or lost due to human activities. The four families of jewel beetles, longhorn beetles, rose beetles and stag beetles prefer habitats that have become rare in Switzerland: Floodplain forests, old and dead wood stands, sparse forests, shrub-rich forest edges and hedgerows. As recyclers and decomposers of wood, they are indispensable for the balance of the forest ecosystem. Many of these endangered beetle species depend on very old trees, which are becoming increasingly rare to find. Therefore, it is important to leave old trees as habitats for such animals until they decay, if possible, to maintain them instead of cutting them down where necessary, and to provide for their replacement in good time.

The decline in species of vascular plants mainly affects plant species near and in water, in dry meadows, shrubs and hedges, and in fields and vineyards. Settlement areas and cultivated land are particularly affected: where soils are oversaturated with nitrogen, demanding species are displaced.

Promotion of biodiversity

Some of the native beetle species studied are extremely sensitive to environmental changes. Like vascular plants, they are therefore good indicators of the state of biodiversity. Based on Red Lists and inventories of other species, the federal government and cantons are already implementing biodiversity-promoting measures in the forest and in agriculture, but these must be further strengthened. In concrete terms, this means that habitats should be enhanced, old trees should be preserved as long as possible, forest reserves, old-growth islands and stepped forest edges should be created, and tree care should be carried out with care. Nitrogen inputs are to be reduced.

Since 2012, the Federal Council has been aiming to counteract biodiversity loss with its Swiss Biodiversity Strategy and the associated action plan, which is currently being prepared. Successful implementation of the strategy requires broad-based cooperation between all stakeholders.

Source: Federal Office for the Environment

No customer says no when they are part of the process.

The forum was opened by Prof. Dr. Ruedi Nützi, Director of the FHNW School of Business, who welcomed the approximately 250 participants in the packed auditorium of the FHNW Olten Campus and pointed out the 150-year success story of Swiss industry, which is now facing completely new challenges.

From Kodak to Instagram
The keynote speeches were given by Urs Rickenbacher, CEO of Lantal Textiles, and Roger Wüthrich, Head of Digital Business at Swisscom. The latter went through the history of digitization in fast motion, starting in the 1950s. He showed how global megatrends combined with new business models are driving digitization and will soon also reach SMEs. Today, he said, it is primarily a matter of keeping an eye not only on competitors, but above all on new trends and opportunities for digital business models.

In the following workshops, individual areas of digital transformation were addressed, such as financing options for SMEs, innovation in the context of Industry 4.0, the use of business software, cloud solutions, etc.

Trends in digital marketing
Special attention was paid to aspects of digital marketing, from user experience to content marketing and the role of social media to automated marketing processes. All of this was always "broken down" to the financial possibilities of SMEs, i.e. cost-effective solutions were proposed that are also financially viable.

No customer says no when they are part of the process
The second keynote speech was given by Urs Rickenbacher, CEO of Lantal Textiles AG. The Langenthal-based company has a global market share of 65% in aircraft interiors (seats, curtains, etc.). In addition to various major airlines, its clientele also includes the American presidents (interior design of Air Force One).

At Lantal, customers are involved in the process right from the start in the spirit of Industry 4.0: After an initial meeting, they are presented with equipment variants in an app, which they can then select and order directly online. In this way, they have an early influence on product design.

You can find out more about events at the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland FHNW at www.fhnw.ch

The Skilled Workers Initiative (FKI) bundles measures at federal and cantonal level. Its goal is to make better use of the potential of skilled workers in Switzerland. The implementation of the measures is in full swing. It is now also possible to apply for financial support for projects. The subsidies amount to CHF 400,000 per year. They come from the FKI budget and are available until the end of 2018.

The selection is made by the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs SECO according to clear criteria. The number of projects supported each year is limited to a maximum of eight. They must relate to the following topics:

• Post-qualification and higher qualification according to the needs of the labor market;
• Improving the compatibility of work and family;
• Creating good conditions for gainful employment up to retirement age and beyond;
• Promote innovation to ease the shortage of skilled workers due to higher productivity.

Project funding is open to all fields of action. Due to the available funding, the number of projects will be limited by means of a selection procedure. Interested parties can participate in the selection procedure until 01 August 2016 by submitting the application form provided. The documents for participation as well as further information on the general conditions can be obtained from here can be obtained under the heading "Project Support".

www.admin.ch

Take part in our SME survey!

Increasing cost pressure in retail or industry. The digital transformation, which is no longer just a question of the IT sector. The shortage of skilled workers, which for some is threatening the existence of the company, for others it is just a pipe dream. And ever new regulations and administrative hurdles, which complicate the daily business. These theses are confirmed in the first interim results of the online survey for the SME Monitor, a special publication of the ORGANISATOR. The responses from this online survey are intended to provide a picture of the mood and show what challenges companies are currently facing and what measures - such as investments - they are taking to overcome them.

Kompass Arbeitsintegration takes its motto of innovative work integration very seriously, says managing director Marcel Rüegger. Therefore, a list of candidates will be published on the homepage with immediate effect. www.vereinkompass.ch where their best job seekers are described anonymously with their skills and experience: "This is primarily a service for industrial companies and craft businesses looking for new motivated personnel. Interested companies receive honest reference information from us."

Motivating and detailed

On the one hand, the personnel pool is intended to motivate participants in Kompass Arbeitsintegration to make a special effort to find a new job quickly, because, says Rüegger: "Only the top five to ten percent make it onto the list of candidates, which is updated weekly." This, on the other hand, provides companies with a simple and free platform that describes in detail which skilled and unskilled workers are looking for a job and what qualifications they bring with them.

Manpower for many areas

"The Kompass crew looks after several hundred job-seekers each year. We support and challenge them. Our managers can offer very practical assistance and get job seekers ready for a new job with individually tailored support programs," says Rüegger. Kompass offers jobs in a wide variety of areas such as industrial assembly, mechanics, cable assembly, warehousing, textile workshop, cleaning, woodworking, kitchen, buffet, forestry and environmental work or administration. In addition, external placements are offered in various occupational groups.

Professional assessment

Rüegger cites the advantage over conventional recruitment agencies: "Kompass employees not only know these people from interviews, but have been able to experience, accompany and advise them during their work. This gives a much more comprehensive picture of a job-seeking person." According to Rüegger, the specialists who are trained in supporting and guiding job seekers are also familiar with the requirements of industry, the skilled trades and the service sector based on their own professional experience and employer contacts. This is crucial for assessing skills, he says.

Personnel recruitment simplified

The procedure is also practical: "If a company is interested, they inform us of the box number of a listed person, and in return we inform the jobseeker of the interest expressed, whereupon they can officially apply with the application dossier and reference to the box number. Rüegger is convinced that this free service will give small and medium-sized companies in particular an additional market advantage in their search for personnel and help to reduce recruitment costs.

List of job seekers: http://www.vereinkompass.ch/service/news/

A majority of the Swiss want co-determination in the question of leadership: What is astonishing is that even an overwhelming majority of the managers surveyed (76 percent) would be willing to be elected or even voted out of office by their employees. This is the result of the study 'Switzerland leads?!' by Information Factory in cooperation with jobs.ch and Persorama on the topic of leadership and the new role of employees.

Not a generational issue

Anyone who now believes that this result is primarily due to the age of the managers surveyed is mistaken: managers between 30 and 50 years of age lead the group with 78 percent, followed by baby boomers (over 50 years of age) with 73 percent and younger managers from Generation Y with 72 percent. But although participation is part of everyday life in Switzerland, it is still the exception that managers are allowed to be elected by employees themselves.

Employees must have (almost) the same skills as managers 

The study also examined the question of whether there are skills that managers in particular possess and employees do not. The interesting result: almost all the skills examined are just as important for employees as they are for managers. These include professional communication, building and maintaining work-related relationships, and the ability to organize oneself well.

The most frequently mentioned tasks/skills that, according to study participants, are primarily possessed by executives include: making far-reaching decisions (40 percent) and taking responsibility (24 percent). According to their own assessment, managers are also stronger when it comes to thinking and acting strategically and conceptually, as well as successfully shaping change processes. Only 43 percent see the latter skills in their employees.

Leadership also works without exercising power

"Our study shows that exercising power as a component of leadership activity is moving further into the background. The question that then arises is how strong leadership is supposed to function with less and less power," explains Claudia Conrads, a consultant at Information Factory, Zurich. "In addition, 58 percent of all study participants indicated that their company is currently undergoing a change process. When you consider that the responsibility for successful change is supposed to lie more or less solely with the executives, it's understandable that more than half of the respondents don't believe their company can master these change processes."

Further study results

A total of 2,414 people took part in the online survey, including 1,353 employees without management responsibility, 788 managers and 273 HR specialists. The survey was conducted from March to June 2016. The study also brought other findings to light:

• A clear difference was found in the identification with the work: Managers identify with their own work in an overwhelming 75 percent of cases. And HR professionals are also very satisfied with their own job (72 percent). By contrast, only 54 percent of employees said they could identify with their work.
• Identification and sense of meaning comparatively poor among the younger generation: Do you feel called to your work? If yes, then you most likely belong to the age group over 30. Baby boomers, people over 50, feel the strongest calling (74%) and Generation Y, people under 30, the least (49%).
• The fact that there is still catching up to do in terms of employer attractiveness is confirmed by the results of the probability of recommendation, which was surveyed on a 10-point scale. A full 56 percent would not recommend their company to others (detractors). And only 17 percent of employees would recommend their company without reservation (Promoters). 26 percent are neutral about recommending their company (Neutrals).
• The increasing networking of markets is increasing the complexity of the tasks to be handled in companies. Teamwork is becoming increasingly important because many tasks can only be solved by combining different specializations.
• The most important skill for managers and employees is the ability to communicate. The most commonly cited reason why teamwork fails is lack of or poor communication.
• Leading virtual teams places new demands on managers. Leadership is becoming more global and thus also digital. In Switzerland, leadership with electronic media such as online feedback systems is already established in many industries. At the forefront of the industry comparison: IT, insurance and banking.
• What makes employers attractive? The most important factors are a nice team (51 percent), fun at work (50 percent), work-life balance (48 percent), career (42 percent), and good pay (38 percent).

In spring 2015, SBB, Swisscom, Microsoft Switzerland, Mobiliar, Swiss Post and Witzig The Office Company founded the Work Smart Initiative.

From Home Office Day to a broad-based Work Smart initiative

A lot has happened since the first national Home Office Day in 2010 and the transfer to the Work Smart Initiative last year: Numerous new partners support the initiative, and many companies are aligning themselves with the Work Smart Charter. A variety of tools as well as events support companies and organizations in sustainably changing their own work culture in the direction of more flexibility and in benefiting from the insights of others.

The Work Smart Initiative

In spring 2015, SBB, Swisscom, Microsoft Switzerland, Mobiliar, Swiss Post and Witzig The Office Company founded the Work Smart Initiative. By promoting flexible forms of work, the initiative aims to achieve the following goals:

1.  Creating motivating framework conditions for highly qualified employees
2. Better tap the labor market for skilled workers
3. Using resources and transport infrastructures more smartly

Currently, 79 Swiss employers have signed the Work Smart Charter, committing to these three goals.

Of the approximately 4.65 million employees in the Swiss economy, 1.12 million people, or around a quarter, already work flexibly. 2.62 million employees cannot yet work flexibly due to their job, infrastructure or company regulations. So far, 79 companies have signed the Work Smart Charter, expressing their commitment to Switzerland as a flexible place to think and work.

The new studies by the University of Zurich and the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland focused on two questions: How has the Swiss economy changed specifically since the last measurement in 2014 and what methods are available to successfully shape the transformation of work culture?

Findings:

• Of the 4.65 million people employed in the Swiss economy, 1.12 million, or about a quarter, already work in a largely flexible manner.
• 2.62 million employees cannot (due to their job or technical infrastructure) or are not allowed (due to company regulations and/or management culture) to work flexibly.
• 11 % of employees could already work flexibly by virtue of their job, but do not have the technology to do so (4 %, constant compared to 2014) or do not have permission to do so (7 % compared to 8 % 2014).
• Only 6 % of the employed do not want to work at all and only 3 % of the employed want to work less flexibly.

Biggest obstacles to flexible working

It usually happens that team collaboration requires physical proximity (54 %). Other important areas where there is less flexibility relate to data protection and confidentiality (38 %) and company regulations, which do not allow flexible working or only in exceptional situations (36 %).

There are numerous approaches for the transition from presence models to flexible forms of work with corresponding target agreements that have been tried and tested in the Swiss economy. These include comprehensive methods such as "participative management" as well as focused methods "directives and social guidelines". In practice, these approaches are often combined. The application of the methods and their combination should be made consciously and adapted to the corporate context. Nevertheless, there are still many gray areas.

The studies and practical examples will be presented during Work Smart Week from September 12 to 16.

http://www.work-smart-initiative.ch

For the sixteenth time, the icommit survey institute in Küsnacht conducted the employee survey for the Swiss Employer Award. 151 companies in Switzerland and Liechtenstein took part in the comprehensive survey. With a total of 45,680 employees, more people were surveyed than in any previous year. At just under 76 percent, the company average participation rate was the same as in 2015.

Among other things, employees rated work content, structures and processes, collaboration, handling change, leadership by superiors, employee development and compensation systems. Of the participating companies, the fifty with the best ratings were awarded prizes according to four size categories.

What distinguishes outstanding companies

If we compare the top three from all four size categories with the other participating companies, they stand out above all in the following three aspects: their handling of change, management and compensation. Here, the ratings of the twelve top-ranked companies are nine to twelve points above the average for all participating companies on the hundred-point scale used. In 2015, it was the same three aspects in which the top-ranked companies differed most from the others.

However, the similar results are by no means due to the fact that it is always the same companies - in fact, only around 18% of the companies take part in the survey each year. Rather, the three aspects mentioned seem to be particularly central for employees in general in companies from a wide range of industries and size categories.

Categories Large companies (1,000+ employees):

ISS Switzerland Provider of Facility Services, Zurich

Medium-sized companies (250-999 employees) :

BRACK.CH Electronics trading company, Mägenwil

Medium-sized companies (100-249 employees) :

Hotel Hof Weissbad AG, Weissbad Hotel, private clinic, health and wellness center

Small companies (50-99 employees) :

Swiss Paraplegics Association, Nottwil National self-help organization of paraplegics

Which industries are ahead

A third of all participating companies received the Swiss Employer Award for their outstanding rating. The companies receiving awards are by no means evenly distributed across all the sectors represented. The proportion of wholesale companies that received an award is strikingly high. This has risen even further since 2014. In 2016, five out of six companies from this sector received an award. In the construction sector, too, the success rate this year is once again well above average at 46%.

The situation is similar in the hotel/catering industry: 45% of the participating companies received an award. Interesting up-and-comers can be found in the healthcare and transportation sectors. Just three years ago, these industries were practically absent among the awarded companies. Last year, however, their share increased rapidly and this year, for the first time, it is even above average. Industrial companies seem to have a more difficult time, with only a quarter of the participating companies receiving awards.

In the service sector and retail/sales, only one fifth each received awards. Organizations from the education and administration sectors, foundations and associations have an even smaller share of award-winning companies, at just 13%. No companies were awarded in the field of information technology and pharmaceuticals/medical technology, although their participation was also very low.

The individual carriers

The benchmarking study Swiss Employer Award has become a groundbreaking tool for Swiss companies. It is supported by the Swiss Employers' Association, HR Swiss (Swiss Association for Human Resources Management), the business magazine "Bilanz" and the icommit institute in Küsnacht ZH, which conducts and evaluates the employee survey. (Source: Press release)

Lake research always offers new surprises. At an information day organized by Eawag, the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, experts were informed about new findings and trends.

In the large-scale "Projet Lac", Eawag, together with the cantons, the Federal Office for the Environment, the University of Bern and the Natural History Museum of the Bernese Burgergemeinde, as well as other partners, investigated fish diversity in lakes near the Alps from 2010 to 2015.

More than 70 fish species could be detected. Whitefish predominate to the greatest depths, but only in the cleanest lakes. Perch and carp fish dominate the more nutrient-rich lakes today or in the past. Many species from greater water depths, especially whitefish and char, occur only in individual lakes where they have evolved, mostly since the last ice age, by adapting to the extreme habitats. In most of the lakes, however, the former deep-water fish species have been lost. For example, in Lake Zug, which is 197 meters deep, there are hardly any fish left below 30 meters.

Yet not extinct

The "Projet Lac" also brought good news: In Lake Constance, thanks to a targeted search, several specimens of the deep-water char (Salvelinus profundus), which is native only there, were rediscovered. This species, still frequently caught by Lake Constance fishermen until the 1960s, was declared extinct by the IUCN Nature Conservation Union in 2008. The deep-sea char was found at depths of around 80 meters and fed on strudel worms, small crustaceans and mussels. How large the population still is, from which the now found specimens originate, should be investigated in the future.

Overfertilization already 2000 years ago

It is well known that historical information is stored in lake sediments - from pile-dwellers to the occurrence of pollutants and the cesium fallout from Chernobyl. Now, using a 10-meter sediment core from Lake Murten, Eawag researchers have gone one step further. They have reconstructed the land-use history around the lake from the deposited information.

Around 100 BC, at the time when the Romans began to clear large areas of forest around the lake, a rapid change can be seen in the sediments: Within a short time, a lot of soil was washed into the lake and with it many nutrients. Thus, Lake Murten was already overfertilized at one time 2000 years ago. It was not until the fall of the Roman Empire and several periods of significantly colder climate at the beginning of the Middle Ages that the overfertilization subsided again. What effects this phase in Roman times had on the ecology of the lake still needs to be researched in more detail.

Antibiotic resistance more common in ARA discharges.

In sewage treatment plants (WWTPs), fecal germs encounter many other bacteria as well as a cocktail of antibiotic residues and pollutants in relatively warm water. Under these conditions, resistance genes can be transferred to previously antibiotic-sensitive species or to environmental bacteria. Resistant bacteria also enter the environment with the treated wastewater.

A study by Eawag has demonstrated in the sediment of Lake Geneva off Lausanne that resistance genes are clustered in the vicinity of a discharge point. The influence of wastewater can also be demonstrated for other waterbodies. The health risk from this pollution is very low. Nevertheless, the researchers involved advocate that, when expanding wastewater treatment plants with treatment stages against micropollutants, attention should also be paid at the same time to removing as much antibiotic resistance as possible before it enters the environment.

Wind power has grown enormously in Europe and worldwide. In 2015, wind turbines with a capacity of 350 gigawatts were installed around the globe, 135 gigawatts of which were in Europe, distributed across around 87,000 wind turbines. At 13 percent, the share of wind energy is now greater than that of nuclear power plants. In countries such as Spain, Denmark or Germany, enough wind power has already been installed to theoretically cover the respective national electricity demand under ideal conditions - maximum wind production and low electricity demand.

Changing production

However, the installed capacity says little about how much electricity a country's wind turbines actually fed into the respective national grid. This is because wind energy is difficult to predict. This makes it difficult to link it to existing energy systems.

Operators and energy researchers therefore rely on simulating electricity production with high temporal resolution to estimate how high the load might be at any given time.

Only recently have researchers begun to perform such simulations with the help of so-called reanalysis models. These are global weather models that are fed with real measured data from weather stations and satellites. These reanalyses process these measurements into coherent global simulations of atmospheric conditions.

Models critically reviewed

However, data from reanalyses have a big catch: the weather models simplify the real world. As a result, factors important for wind power, such as the surface conditions around a wind farm, are not represented in sufficient detail. Thus, when such data from reanalysis models are used without corrections for simulations of wind power production, the models provide a systematically biased picture. Nevertheless, some studies of wind power production have been published that rely on uncorrected data.

Energy researcher Stefan Pfenninger of ETH Zurich and his colleague Iain Staffell of Imperial College London therefore compiled data on measured electricity production from wind farms across Europe, as well as country-specific production data collected by power grid operators. They needed this data collection to derive correction factors for each European country. Finally, they simulated wind power production in Europe over twenty years using the Virtual Wind Farm Model (VWF) they developed.

Underestimated south

Thanks to their rigorous approach, the two researchers have been able to paint a more realistic picture of wind power production in Europe. Their simulations reveal that the uncorrected simulations used in other studies overestimated wind power production in northwestern Europe by up to 50 percent, while underestimating production in southern Europe by 30 percent.

The researchers also recalculated the utilization rates for Europe: the current European average is 24.2 percent; in the UK it is 32.4 percent and in Germany 19.5 percent. The European average varies by only a few percent from year to year. "This deviation is much smaller than that of any single country," Pfenninger says. "The larger the wind fleet and the greater the geographic dispersion, the smaller the fluctuations in supply." He says it is therefore important for national power grids to be even better interconnected to compensate for production shortfalls in one area with excess production in another country.

The simulation also shows that utilization rates are on the rise, thanks in part to better technology and better offshore locations. The UK's wind farms are now a quarter more productive than they were ten years ago.

North Sea states make gains

At the current planning stage, Pfenninger and Staffell expect that the average utilization rate for Europe could increase by one-third to more than 31 percent. "North Sea countries in particular are likely to see strong gains in the near future," Pfenninger says. The United Kingdom could reach a utilization rate of nearly 40 percent, and Germany could reach one of nearly 30 percent.

To enable planners, grid and power plant operators, as well as other scientists, to continue using the simulations developed by the energy researchers, Pfenninger and Staffell created the interactive web application www.renewables.ninja, where the European data sets are available for download. The two researchers have been testing the platform for six months. It already counts users from 54 institutions in 22 countries, including the International Energy Agency.

The platform also grants access to data developed with a comparable simulation of photovoltaic electricity production in Europe. The study on photovoltaics appears at the same time as the one on wind power production and was also written by Pfenninger and Staffell.

Text: Peter Rüegg, ETH Zurich

In the exhibition "Let's go DanaLand" of the University of Bern on the topic of sufficiency, knowledge about a sufficiency-oriented lifestyle and possible options for action is conveyed. "Let's go DanaLand" is an experiential game for teenagers and young adults and embedded in an interactive exhibition.

Visitors are guided through the exhibition using an app. At the beginning, they carry out a self-assessment of values and attitudes that characterize a sufficiency-oriented, frugal lifestyle. The app then uses questions to guide them through the four areas of nutrition, mobility, technical devices and everyday consumption. The visitors are accompanied by assistants, who are tasked with identifying candidates for DanaLand and talk about their lives in videos. There is always additional information.

Finally, the answers are evaluated and compared with the self-assessment. Then the players know where they stand and whether they are also candidates to be able to create a good life on DanaLand with few resources.

Temporary exhibitions such as "Let's go DanaLand" complement the permanent exhibitions of the Environment arena and form additional highlights and focal points. The current traveling exhibition at the University of Bern appeals primarily to teenagers and young adults aged 16 to 25, schoolchildren and students. The exhibition breaks down complex knowledge to an easily understandable level. In the process, the students have to become active themselves. To do so, they need their cell phone, on which they can download the app. The exhibition is self-explanatory and can be visited without a guide. The Umwelt Arena provides fairphones if required.

The traveling exhibition "Let's go DanaLand" is on display at the Umwelt Arena Spreitenbach until November 30, 2016. From January 2017, the adventure game will go on tour to various schools and communities.