We started the day off with a lecture by Karel Bockstael, the former VP of Sustainability at KLM, a major Dutch airline. Though this lecture primarily focused on the engineering side of aviation with methods to fly in a more sustainable manner, including battery operated aircraft and bio fuels rather than fossil fuels, I saw a connection to the business side of things. More specifically, there was a connection to supply chain management, or concept to consumer. While all of these sustainable concepts may be brilliant ideas, there is a business component that is necessary to bring these ideas to life. Something that Bockstael pointed out was that while sustainability is incredibly important to prioritize for future generations to thrive, it is not always easy to implement these things. Like all things in the world, there is a trade off and many people aren’t necessarily willing to make these tradeoffs if it disrupts their lifestyles that they are already so comfortable with. However, sustainable options are not always the most cost effective. To implement sustainability in aviation would cost the consumers extra money and as we all know, they aren’t really big fans of that idea. This is where marketing would be absolutely critical to convince these consumers that the sustainability feature is worth their money. 

We ended the day with a walking tour of the Anne Frank House. This experience was certainly emotionally taxing as I walked through the secret annex and read the diary entries of Anne Frank and I remembered that all of these devastating things happened to real people. The annex consisted of small and dark rooms and it really made me realize my privilege as I could not imagine what it would’ve been like to live in such a claustrophobic space fearing for my life each day. However, despite this experience being a heavy one, I thought it was incredibly necessary to experience it as it is such an undeniably critical part of the history of the Netherlands.