Top-class guests from politics, companies, start-ups and science will discuss in the SZ high-rise how we can – and must – think about business in a sustainable way. All reports on the panel discussions, debates and lectures can be found on this special page.
Sarah Wiener, 59, would prefer to conduct her political discussions while snipping and sizzling. But for one thing, MEPs are not allowed to cook in the office. On the other hand, the Austrian, who is best known as a cook, has mostly lived in hotels since she has been a member of the European Parliament. As a member of parliament, she has been dealing with agriculture, nutrition and animal welfare for three years and, especially in the first two years, had “many bad moments”, as she said on Wednesday at the SZ sustainability summit, to which she had traveled from her farm in Uckermark .
It was a “very quick decision” when the Austrian Greens asked her if she wanted to stand for them. According to Wiener, she agreed “without really knowing what I was getting myself into”. However, she had already dealt with the topics that she is dealing with politically today when she was a cook. “I approached from the cutting board,” she said. “It started with me wondering what quality food is.” The fact that one of her topics had become healthy eating was more of a “collateral damage”. At that time, what was considered “super food” was what was “rare, expensive, fresh”. But that the whole process, from the soil to the variety and harvest to storage, is crucial, “it only became clear to me over the years”.
As one of two Austrian Greens in Brussels, she is now, as she puts it, part of the “mass attitude” in Brussels. At first she found it difficult to find her way. Parliament works non-stop, you get 130 pages of papers in the evening and you’re supposed to form an opinion by morning. “I had a very, very steep learning curve,” she said. Among other things, she helped to develop the “Farm to Fork” strategy, with which the Commission wants to change the entire food chain. Wiener focused in particular on the degree of processing of food. She considers in-vitro meat and similar laboratory meat to be “highly problematic”https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/. “If we step through this gate, we will be a different species,” she is convinced. She brought the “promotion and research of regional food crafts” into the strategy and has been fighting for European minimum standards in turkey husbandry for three years. “No animal is so overbred and receives so many antibiotics,” said Wiener. In parting, she advised not to think that turkey breast salad is good for yourself. “Better leave it alone if you don’t want to turn your body into a repository,” and advised: “Cook it yourself!” She would also like to have more time for this – but at the end of the day she rushed on to Brussels.