First things first: Environmental impact is a very important topic these days and I appreciate every action that makes the in and on itself environmentally ... dubious ... the action of having a burn more sustainable and environmentally friendly.

Some thoughts on the matter:

1. The process of handing in dreams and process is very very tiresome for a lot of artists. This is already the case as german tax regulations require a huge amount of paperwork. The setup of dreams require them to also don promoting, writing a pitch & answering questions from dream guides and communities.
Part of the goal for the dream team 2020 (haha) is to reduce this friction for artists so they can spend their time doing art rather than worrying about filling out forms and other administrative things. The suggestion of "all proposals on the dreams platform answer in one question of their application in great detail about the environmental impact of their art / installation / contribution / project" is hence a super huge task. I would love to pick up your suggestions and see if we can boil your questions down to easy 'checkbox' questions where additional comments can be made.



2. I do not approve giving people tasks and requirements which are at odds with each other. In this case: Getting a receipt to get refunds vs. Getting things 2nd hand / not buying them new to be enviromentally friendly.
In order to get a refund for their expenses, the artist has to hand in an invoice or receipt. Getting things 2nd hand is more environmentally friendly, but often does not provide a proper option for a receipt. There are ways to circumvent this issue sometimes (as in having a 'Quittungsblock') - but the Finanzamt will not approve of a huge bunch of self-written receipts.
This is an issue we have at my real life work as well. We would like to be more sustainable but in order for the bookkeeping and finanzamt to be happy we are officially forced to get everything new.


3. Questions like the ones quoted below are great raise awareness / make artists think about more sustainable ways. To answer them takes a lot of time, effort and mental juggling of hypothetical numbers. I think these questions should be 100% optional and I also think that a communal effort to help artists make their project more enviromentally friendly is a better approach than forcing that task on the artists back on top of all the other things they have to do.
"How many kilos of material will need to be transported to and from Kiezburn for the project? Can this transport be done in a CO2 neutral way?

• How many kilos of plastic are used in a project? For each plastic material used in the project - is there a suitable natural material that can be used instead?

• Does the project utilize or generate single-use plastic? What materials can be used instead?"

This is a very fair and important point you're bringing up. Nevertheless, maybe there's a way to encourage thinking twice while deciding what kind of project one want to bring.

A fact is also, that environmental responsibility is a pre-requisite. Our art projects aren't. Meaning that to start a project from scratch will imply taking the decisions of which kind of materials/energy/transport you need. Maybe this questions could be enhanced, or highlighted, at the very beginning of any art project/dream process? Like in the "instructions" period?

As background: I've seen and done that of "well, I'll go for the single-use shitty plastic because it'll make things easier and cheaper. But this thinking is toxic and neglecting. I believe we can do better.

I am 100% with you here, @Cris !

My point of critique was the request to make artists write an extensive explanation essay answering roughly half a dozen questions as part of their dream outline.

To be very clear. The things I can personally think of that would also serve this goal but are more friendly to the dreamer:

• Coming up with a more dreamer-friendly way for them to report their environmental impact (f.e. through easy to answer Likert-scale questionnaires in the signup form + a free text field where they can make additional [but optional] comments about how they plan to make their art as environmentally-friendly as possible). Making environmental impact part of the basic information that is displayed about all available dreams. Just like 'Footprint' and 'Needs electricity?'

• Making 'Environmental impact' a part of the instruction manual for dreamers

• Encourage dream guides to ask questions about environmental impact when there seem to be obvious points where things can be improved (this will be up to the personal motivation and effort of the dream guide, ultimately.).
  

Saskia, thank you for the detailed input.

Regarding invoices for used goods: I think it is of paramount importance that the Verein establishes a good way for artists to hand in invoices for used goods / "Handbelege". This is a completely normal process and is also done by companies. I have handed in "Handbelege" in many cases to my previous company, and if they include all necessary info (Date, purpose, signature,...) that's no issue at all.

One question in regard to that is, if it touches the Finanzamt at all, because in our case these are to document expenditures from artists in front of Kiezburn e.V., in this case it could matter though if the money comes from "ticket sales" or "donations". Vereine do cash transactions for used goods in all Germany all the time (backyard sales /"Flohmärkte") etc. If Kiezburn provides a template to artists that can be printed out, that would be ideal, as then no required info would be missing. A printout eg. of an "Ebay Kleinanzeigen" ad can be supportive, is in no way a necessity though. It's mostly about the trust that Kiezburn has in the artist, and only that. (Printed invoices don't increase trust much, as you can easily shop at OBI, bring all items back after a few days, and get a cash refund.)

If it's about tax refunds from the Finanzamt: It makes more sense to buy used things at half the price, and not get a 19% tax refund, instead of buying at full price and being able to deduct 19% from that. You'll still spend much more.

https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eigenbeleg

(Again, I think that's only barely relevant, as there will not be a Vorsteuerabzug for used goods, which doesn't matter, because they are anyway much cheaper than buying something new.)

If at some point someone from the Verein has an appointment with a tax consultant / Steuerberater, it would be good to clarify what's the best way for documentation.

If for some reason an issue arises, another solution is that the artist bills the Verein for the sum of all used goods bought ("Honorarnote"). This way, you have only one invoice / Beleg for all used goods purchased per each project, and you can easily give the artist a template for that.

Thank you very much for your wonderful reply, @David . This was the kind of knowledge we were and are missing at sometimes. The Verein has been founded a little bit more than a year ago and we're still in the middle of a steep learning curve. Getting information like this in such a condensed manner is really helpful! We will make sure to include a proper description of the process in the guide for dreamers in order to encourage them to look out for used and 2nd hand material rather than new stuff.

For that matter I am tagging @Alexxx . Can you bring this question to the Steuerberater?
Can Kiez Burn provide a proper template that will satisfy the Finanzamt in order to enable artists to buy used goods/2nd hand?

Cool. So to clarify for the Steuerberater, in that case we are not interested in a Vorsteuerabzug, just to do our bookkeeping properly.

And if he sees an issue, immediately go to solution 2, and ask what data an invoice from an artist ("Honorarnote") must contain. That, the artist can hand in to the Verein, one per each dream. And if the reason / Betreff on the honornote should mention these used goods, I suspect it will be smarter to leave it out and make it just a general "Honorarnote" for the art project / service rendered.

Hi David,

Excellent proposal, and a great insight to how the Verein and Finanzamt interact on this level. You are right on all counts.

Our documentation from last years "Receipt Hand In Protocol" had a section explaining that handwritten belege are fine, so long as they have the relevant information (Date of sale, name and address of seller, description of goods/services, price (with breakdown if necessary), reason for using a handwirtten belege (i.e. Privatverkauft durch ebay kleinanzeige), date and signature, artists could hand them in no worries. As Finance lead I am not worried about the 19% MwSt return compared the the 60% saved on an ecological purchase.
The dilemma was that the receipt hand in doc was about 10 pages long, and I couldn't make it any shorter, so many people simply didn't read that deep into it.

This highlights another problem, which is "how much effort should a dreamer put in to their dream, to simplify the work of the volunteer processing their refund as a real service". As the volunteer putting in the unrewarding grueling hours of processing these things (including a lot of photocopying), I ma inclined to pass the work on to the dreamer. And if they can't read the instructions when it clearly states "READ THE INSTRUCTIONS IN FULL IF YOU WANT YOUR MONEY BACK", then I feel no emotional obligation to bend over backwards for anyone.
(I am now getting sidetracked, back to my story.....)


I LOVE the idea of a template that Dreamers can use to ensure they have all the correct information. I will try to make one at a later time, but if you find time to whip one together and send it to the finance@kiezburn.org email, I would be very very grateful at having that task offloaded.

My intention to solve the long-doc problem, is to make a funky 10 minute video explaining the process and WHY we expect dreamers to follow the process (because the Finanzamt are the true Overlords of Germany, long may they reign.....).

I would recommend we also have some videos explaining the dreams process (including this proposal of guidelines), "how to make a dream", "how to gather and submit your receipts", "tips and tricks" etc. I think this would increase engagement and help the Millenials catch up with German bureaucratic systems without having to what many have been conditioned out of doing.... reading.....

Love the initiative, if I can support in any way, I would love to!

Yes I can make a template. Please send me:

• Link to "Receipt hand in doc"

• Maybe a snap of an Eigenbeleg that you got last year and that was particularly good or complete to davsdl@gmail.com

• Info if you see the Steuerberater in the next weeks, and if he recommends the "Eigenbeleg" (for each item) or "Honorarnote" (one per dream) route, so that I don't do the work twice.

Thanks!

Ps: I'd love a link to the 2019 post mortem googledrive folder. I couldn't find it anywhere.

The idea I'm working with will involce of lot of meterials, some I already have and some I don't. We're talking deveral different types of paint (bodypaint, airbrush paint, uv, paint, acryclic) and supports (canvasses, plaster casting bandages, air compressers) - there is simply no way I am going to have the time or desire to reseach every individual item for it's percentage recycling materials, CO2 footrprint invovled in transportation and entire background production history with a view to sustainability credentials.

If you want to fo it, I'll send you the full list and you can knock yourself out!

Out of curiosity: can the people who replied explain the reactions? Not sure if you are disappointed or actually think it should be an idea to get artists to spend hours and days researching companies and products instead of actually buiding and creating the reality in the first place?

How long do you think it would take, and what do you think is an acceptable/unacceptable amount of time doing it?

Or am i misredaing your emojis?

I gave a thumbs down because I thought your post was not very nice or cooperative.

That's still not really very informative.
I don't like the proposal. It's going to create a LOT of extra work and paperwork form me. That's the reality.
Sorry if that's deemed an opinion that is not nice and uncooperative, but I'm not going to express a nicer and more copperative opinion if it's not something I feel.
At this point it feels like you're trying to sanitise the discussion by negatively reacting to posts you don't like rather than actually engaging in discussion.

Your opinion is fine and valid. There are different ways to express that. I didn't like the way you chose. That's my opinion.

From the emoticon, it looks like you disagree with the actual opinion, which is what I found confusing.
Beyond that, I expressed an opinion and explained why and what effects it was going to have. Not much more I can do .

The point of this forum is to discuss and find solutions amongst a varied group of people. I think there's a significant difference between saying "These are my concerns with this: x, y, z. Can we find a way to address that?" and "No, I'm definitely not doing that, I'll send it all to you and you do it."

Solutions to what? The idea does not hightlight or resolove any problem or issue, Nor does it state a clear goal. Is there a problem? What is it trying to achieve? Solutions can not be offered until this is stated.

From here, it looks like it just creates unnessecary work for others. It even asks for more questions! More forms! More time to be asted and worked on! Kafka could have loved it!

I am also against the idea becaue I believe that people should dreams based on merit and aristic endeavour, not on materials and cost-cutting endeveaours by the artist.

I did actually propose a solution, but you ignored it at first and then misquoted it, see below.

Alternartive, proposed solution: scrap the idea. It doesn't serve a purpose. It doesn't claim to serve a prupose. It just states the unconfirmed premise "it would be good....".
Would be be good...?

Also, claiming you don't like the tone of the post or find it not nice is essentiually running away without porposing solutions either.

Finally, I most certainly did NOT say "I'm definitely not doing that" or tell ANYONE I'm going to send things to them. I find that a gross misquotation.

@CJ Yetman I think it's very important to listen carefully to potential artist's feedback here since they will be the ones affected most by this proposal. I would love to hear from more artists.

Also maybe @Paul aka Khromo disagree with the proposal itself? I don't see a vote from you.

Thought I did...? Bloody Talk - second time this has happened to me!

@Benjamin Langholz I think I made it pretty clear... I'm not ignoring nor even disagreeing with his opinion. I simply don't think taking that kind of tone is productive in coming to an agreeable solution. Talk has unfortunately become a rather hostile environment and I'd really like to guide people to having more productive, nicer, thoughtful comments. Let's not blow this out of proportion, it was just a thumbs down emoji.

Again: can you hightlight the problem you are asking for solutions to ?As far as I can see, there was no problem presented.

Furthermore, there is not hostile tome in my statement. Disagreeing with someone is not automatically hostile. Not porposing solutions is not automatically hostile.

I voted disagree for several reasons.

1. I want more art at KiezBurn not less so I cannot support anything that adds additional friction to the process which is already laborious.

2. Having gone through this process many times myself I can tell you with 100% certainty that most of the questions you listed will not have real answers at the time of submitting the Dream. It takes a long time past the proposal process to start having real clarity on such fine details about materials. If I was filling this out I would just bullshit it honestly.

3. I don’t like the feeling of a proposal that makes it more difficult for others to contribute to our event, while requiring little to no effort from the person making the proposal. This doesn’t feel like DO to me. Would you be willing instead of creating more work for others, take on this responsibility for yourself? Perhaps form and lead a small team which would make efforts to collect this information from artists, work to help them find sources of sustainable / reusable material / have a high level view of transportation and tool needs and combine efforts to reduce waste? I can think of many more ways a dedicated team of people working on this could have a huge assistance impact on KB.

4. This will greatly influence the kind of work proposed for KB. For example do you like multicolored LED light up installations? (I don’t particularly) LEDs are certainly not a reclaimed recycled object and the production of them is not something that’s great for the world in any way.

5. I don’t remember exactly what was listed on the Dreams publicly last year. But having so much detail on an area like this makes Art feel completely objective and something that can be quantified entirely with numbers where as the benefits of artwork to the world let alone KB are almost entirely subjective and impossible to quantify in a meaningful way.

6. I would also very much question why you find this necessary on the with art. I think if this was a meaningful proposal and there was a group of people who were ready to Volunteer energy to make this happen. This idea could easily be extended to every single aspect of the event. How much electricity and energy is a sound camps going to use? Maybe we should know this before an event and decided as a community if this is worth it. What about the organization and build team? What about every member buying a ticket? Are they going to Decathlon to buy a tent they will only use once? Are they vegan? Will they promise to buy their drugs from a local sustainable source?Unless you see art as a superfluous addition to our event that serves no real purpose therefore should be minimizing its impact as much as humanly possible?

7. This encourages a culture of doing less. I want to participate in a culture of more.

hey @Benjamin Langholz since you said you don't remember what was displayed on Dreams last year, here's a link into the past: https://dreams.2019.kiezburn.org/

@David maybe it might be useful to rephrase your thread question towards "how can we make Kiez Burn more environment-friendly?". Art is only a small portion of the Kiez Burn environmental impact as @Benjamin Langholz remarks.

• There has been a lot of discussion on "leave a better trace" as a principle instead of "leave no trace". What would that mean? How? How much budget?

• Other events have made moves to carbon-offset the impact they make. Maybe that could be a route taken for Kiez Burn as well?

Within that, I would personally suggest to focus more on initiatives that reward instead of punish.

Initiatives could be:

• organize a Dream-grant contest where you reward the 3 projects that made the best ecological decisions with extra Dream-money. Or you make a separate Dream or other budget category that subsidizes ecological initiatives

• increase the cost of power further (which is something we have done steadily over the years) and/or make a dream for solar or wind power where camps can draw power from (or organize a workshop about it, like salon leobard did last year)

• Transport: organize ecological busses to drive to site (or just make sure that there are busses instead of many cars) or organize a group for carsharing to the site

• organize clearer compost guidelines (largely confusing last year)

• communicate clear waste separation guidelines for camps & freecampers, and what they could do with their waste after the event

• work with the Kiez Kitchen team to provide local bio alternatives for buying food

• provide the option for people purchasing a ticket to carbon-offset their travels

• if we move to muckwar: make a fountain in the lake

• ...

@waldo I would politely disagree with you guiding @David 's very specific initiative - which is, make the art at KB be more environmentally-considered - into a KB-wide eco-effort. Yes, I agree with you, this needs a consideration across the board (and I would say, be led/initiated by the Board). I would propose to let this thread remain what it is? There is enough of interesting material to hash out here! This could then slot into a pan-KB effort, right?

@Alexxx

The Dream World Project was sourced with about 70-80% recycled Material, which I consider a good success story. If Artists/Dreamers are made more aware of the possibilities and processes of up-cycling (which is very easy in Berlin), I believe our ecological impact can be greatly satiated.

have you documented the recycling/upcycling part of the Dream World process by any chance? If not, I would like to help you do that. I think knowing about access to materials is the most important point - it would be good to start gathering some links/addresses/contacts for the community?

ebay-kleinanzeigen.de is a good place to start. It's where we got most of our materials for Dream World

@popo would you be open to explaining your vote on the "art is free" basis? I'm not sure this is what the voting is asking about/for?

I voted against it. I like the idea behind it, but the actual outcome would be rather small (imho). Instead demanding additional todos from those bringing art might lead to have even less art at the event. Giving hints would be great.

I would love to know where the vast majority of emissions are spent. I assume it is in general transport, food and personal items before the event. (I always end with full bag of broken electronics from random burners who bought cheap stuff and don't know a thing about repairs). I like the proposal of a general eco friendly approach which would make this radical inclusive and asks everybody to think about their footprint.

Thank you for all the valuable input. I have been thinking about waldo's proposal as well as Benjamin's and some other artist's strong objection to take the environmental impact of their art into consideration when creating their art, for the various mentioned reasons.

I personally am deciding very consiously what I am funding with my money, especially if it's a significant amount of money, especially if it's for a 5-day event, which in itself can be seen as a quite environmentally unsustainable action.

Nevertheless, as we're all not planning on stopping to breathe either, I would at least hope to raise awareness and keep the environmental impact as low as possible, especially in parts of the project where environmental impact is discarded or ignored easily. That, I want to counter.

There is much to be won for the environment, and not much to be lost, if it's done in a sensible and efficient manner.

As with dreams, each participant can directly choose, if they want to fund something eco-conscious or something mindless and super wasteful, I saw it as the ideal point to start the discussion and raise the awareness, in line with our principle of LBT.

Nevertheless, as environmental effort matters in all areas equally, I would like to extend my question to:

"Environmental impact of Kiezburn: Shall we sensitize all participants of Kiezburn of the environmental impact of their participation and contributions?"

This should extend to all areas of Kiezburn, as it doesn't matter where the damage is done. Also, I would like to see it as a chance to both have a good impact on the environment, on ourselves, and on our wallets.

Done correctly, more eco friendlyness at Kiezburn is a win - win - win situation. (Environment - Participants - Cost)

That's what I want to raise awareness for, and want to promote.

Better idea, but how "sensitising" do you want to get? I mean, the very idea of having camps is wasteful and not as environemtnally friednly as it requires multiple similar resources for single camp use rather than pooling reseouces.

My fear is - and I accept this may be all in my head - that Kiezburn moves away from being a burn and becomes just another eco-festival or raimbow gathering. Nothign wrong with those things, but I don't feel it's not who we are. A part of us, maybe - but not the defining characteristic.

Ultimately, As long as the proposals made to the leads are non-binding and there's no "shaming" of camps and people who respectfully reject the proposals, I'd agree.

I liked very much how the affected parties gave their input and decision making was done by taking all in consideration. As Waldo said up there, @David , you could update the "Need" on Realities platform and change the Name too. Also if you happen to need some qualified unicorn to second you on this, you could also add a "Responsibility" there, and specify what this person could do to eventually take it on. Thanks for doing this!

Hei @David,

I think your research might be a good addition to the dreams manual. The dreams manual is where all the important information for the people doing dreams is gathered.

So if you feel like it, join the dreams & DreamGuiding subgroup to present your results so they can be worked into the manual: https://talk.kiezburn.org/2020-dreams-dreamguiding/