The Climate Foundation for Citizens was founded in September 2014 by the Dietmar Hopp Stiftung GmbH with the aim of operating the KLIMA ARENA in Sinsheim. The KLIMA ARENA encourages active participation and provides valuable information on how to live more responsibly and conserve resources in everyday life, both at work and at home.
The KLIMA ARENA is not only a leisure and adventure center for families and individual visitors, but also an excursion destination with interesting offers for companies, communities, and clubs under the motto “Experience what you can do.” Additionally, as an extracurricular place of learning and an officially recognized extracurricular research center of the state of Baden-Württemberg, it offers a comprehensive educational program for all school subjects and age groups. All activities are designed to inspire people of all generations to think and act sustainably and to motivate them to rethink their own behavior. After all, only those who understand can change and act.
We spoke to Stephan Körber, Head of Marketing, about the Climate Foundation using AI:
AI could help spread important messages faster and more efficiently—are you already using AI in your communications?
We are not yet using AI tools in our day-to-day marketing and communications work, but we are exploring them to understand how and where we can use them to improve the content of our work and, above all, make it more efficient.
What other areas could AI help you with?
Firstly, in the exhibition area, where we try to provide visitors with scientifically sound information on climate protection and sustainability and show them individual options for action. Here we have integrated a first “test pilot” into the exhibition to find out whether and in what form AI-based exhibits could improve our exhibition area. But I’m not the right person to talk about that. As far as my area of responsibility is concerned, there is certainly a lot of potential for AI in the creation of texts and images and in the even better analysis of visitor data.
What tools are you using?
The test pilot in the exhibition is the “Mother Earth Phone” (K3 Prize | k3-klimakongress.org), one of the winners of last year’s K3 Prize for Climate Communication. We are still in the early stages of defining our marketing goals.
You have certainly collected data that could be used—do you already have any ideas or visions?
Since the KLIMA ARENA has only existed since October 2019 and we didn’t start collecting data from the beginning, the database is still incomplete or small, but it is available. In particular, ideas being discussed include analyzing visitor behavior, improving the content of the exhibition, and more efficient use of the budget in applications.
What are the barriers and obstacles to the use of AI?
The biggest challenge is probably the still inadequate database.
Do you have any reservations about using AI in your organization?
No, there aren’t. The team is very interested in continuous development and all the tools that can contribute to it.
How can the use of AI be reconciled with the strict data protection regulations in Germany?
Since we do not plan to work with personal data, this question does not arise for us, but it can certainly be a challenge.
If you could wish for something in terms of AI, what should it do better for all of us?
I believe that AI should primarily focus on capturing the ever-increasing amount of data available in various areas related to socially relevant issues, supporting the analysis, and developing recommendations for action and models. At the same time, it is an even greater challenge to monitor the potential for misuse and to consider control mechanisms, which, in my opinion, are absolutely essential.
