Ursula Sladek (born 1946) is a German

environmentalist Environmentalism is a broad Philosophy of life, philosophy, ideology, and social movement about supporting life, habitats, and surroundings. While environmentalism focuses more on the environmental and nature-related aspects of Green politics, g ...

, founder and former president of Schönau Electricity Works that provides electricity from

renewable sources A renewable resource (also known as a flow resource) is a natural resource which will replenish to replace the portion depleted by usage and consumption, either through natural reproduction or other recurring processes in a finite amount of ti ...

, founded following the 1986

Chernobyl disaster On 26 April 1986, the no. 4 reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, located near Pripyat, Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union (now Ukraine), exploded. With dozens of direct casualties, it is one of only ...

Background

Sladek was born in 1946. She was trained as a school teacher. At the time of the

, she was a homemaker and mother to five school-age children in Schönau. Following the disaster, she began studying the energy industry in Germany to search for ways to decrease dependence on

nuclear Nuclear may refer to: Physics Relating to the nucleus of the atom: *Nuclear engineering *Nuclear physics *Nuclear power *Nuclear reactor *Nuclear weapon *Nuclear medicine *Radiation therapy *Nuclear warfare Mathematics * Nuclear space *Nuclear ...

power. Together with her husband,

Michael Sladek Michael Sladek (1 October 1946 – 24 September 2024) was a German physician and environmentalist. After the Chernobyl disaster, he and his wife, Ursula Sladek, initiated a movement in their hometown Schönau im Schwarzwald to become independen ...

, she formed a group called "Parents for a Nuclear Free Future" to promote energy efficiency in the Black Forest region of Germany and return control of energy production and distribution to the community. By 1991, this movement grew to a nationwide fundraising effort to enable Sladek's group to take ownership of the local power grid when the previous power company's lease to supply power to the Schönau region was up for renewal. The group raised DM6 million (about

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists of a stylized letter E (or epsilon), crossed by t ...

3 million) and by 1997 had established the Schönau Power Supply, EWS Elektrizitätswerke Schönau eG, a

Eingetragene Genossenschaft An "eG" or eingetragene Genossenschaft is a "registered cooperative society" under German Law. Unregistered cooperatives are also possible in Germany but practically never used in practice. In 2004 there were 5470 registered cooperative societies. ...

(registered cooperative society), as a community-operated energy provider committed to a sustainable energy future. She suggested to the mayor of Schönau that the Schönau Power Supply take over control of the local grid. The Schönau Power Supply uses a

decentralized Decentralization or decentralisation is the process by which the activities of an organization, particularly those related to planning and decision-making, are distributed or delegated away from a central, authoritative location or group and gi ...

approach to power generation and

renewable energy Renewable energy (also called green energy) is energy made from renewable resource, renewable natural resources that are replenished on a human lifetime, human timescale. The most widely used renewable energy types are solar energy, wind pow ...

sources, including solar,

hydroelectric Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is Electricity generation, electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies 15% of the world's electricity, almost 4,210 TWh in 2023, which is more than all other Renewable energ ...

wind power Wind power is the use of wind energy to generate useful work. Historically, wind power was used by sails, windmills and windpumps, but today it is mostly used to generate electricity. This article deals only with wind power for electricity ge ...

, and

biomass Biomass is a term used in several contexts: in the context of ecology it means living organisms, and in the context of bioenergy it means matter from recently living (but now dead) organisms. In the latter context, there are variations in how ...

. The company is operated as a cooperative; while the cooperative owners receive dividends, the majority of the profits are re-invested in renewable energy sources. Total revenues reached €67 million in 2009.

Awards and recognition

Sladek has won a number of awards for her work in the fields of energy conservation and renewable energy production. These include the

German Federal Cross of Merit German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ger ...

, the Henry Ford European Conservation Award, the German Founder of the Year Award, the International Nuclear-Free Future Award, the German Energy Prize, the

European Solar Prize The European Solar Prizes are a series of awards which have been given annually since 1994 by the European Association for Renewable Energy (EUROSOLAR) located in Bonn, Germany. The prizes are awarded to individuals or organizations for outstand ...

, and in 2011 she won the

Goldman Environmental Prize The Goldman Environmental Prize is a prize awarded annually to grassroots environmental activists. History Awardees are named from each of the world's six geographic regions: Africa, Asia, Europe, Islands and Island Nations, North America, an ...

. In 2008, Sladek was elected to the

Ashoka Fellowship Ashoka (formerly branded Ashoka: Innovators for the Public) is an American-based nonprofit organization that promotes social entrepreneurship by connecting and supporting individual social entrepreneurs. Ashoka invests in over 3,800 social entre ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sladek, Ursula People associated with solar power People associated with renewable energy Living people German environmentalists Recipients of the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Recipients of the Order of Merit of Baden-Württemberg 1946 births German schoolteachers People from Lörrach (district) Engineers from Baden-Württemberg Goldman Environmental Prize awardees Social entrepreneurs 20th-century German women engineers 21st-century German women engineers 20th-century German engineers 21st-century German engineers