It is Wednesday morning in a meeting room in building 101 at DTU Lyngby Campus. 39-year-old Daniela Pigosso points to a picture of the Earth seen from space. The DTU professor is showing a slideshow about her work on the Reboundless research project, which will revolutionize our approach to sustainable production and consumption to DTU's communications department.
"In 2023, we exceeded six of the nine planetary boundaries," Daniela Pigosso begins her presentation.
The planetary boundaries are a way of describing where the limits of human activities lie if we are to be reasonably sure that the planet will continue to sustain life as it has for many thousands of years.
"The fact that we have exceeded so many of the limits does not mean that disaster is inevitable," Daniela Pigosso emphasizes before clicking through to the next slide, where 'sustainable innovations' is written in large letters on a bright yellow background.
Restoring the ozone layer
As a high school student in Brazil, Daniela Pigosso became aware of the human role in the destruction of nature. This spurred her to study environmental engineering at the University of Sao Paulo.
"At the time, people were concerned about human-induced ozone depletion," recalls Daniela Pigosso.
Without the ozone layer, life on Earth would not be possible because no life would be able to withstand the powerful ultraviolet rays from the sun, which the ozone layer protects against.
"The world community launched a global plan to limit the production and emission of certain ozone-depleting substances through the Montreal Protocol. This reduced the ozone hole and today we are seeing promising signs of recovery," Daniela Pigosso mentions as concrete example of a planetary boundary, which got crossed and now reversed back to its safe operating space.
