At the end of January, Berlin businessman Jochen Wermuth sent Pope Francis a white “Leaf” Nisssan for his 80th birthday (December 17, 2016), revealed on Monday, February 27, 2017, the consulting business investment firm, Wermuth Asset Management, thus putting into operation its convictions that one can ally an environmental and social governance and strong performances. The firm published a photo of the Pope next to the businessman, who drove the car around the Vatican enclosure, The news was relayed by Spiegel on February 25, 2017 and, in Austria, by Kathpress agency.
Joche Wermuth, who is Protestant, wished to help the Vatican in view of a complete conversion to electric mobility and renewable energies, in partnership with DriWe, an integrated platform for the management of electric mobility.
Benedict XVI (2005-2013) already encouraged the ecological turning at the Vatican: he had 2,400 photovoltaic panels installed on the roof of the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall, thanks to German enterprise Bonner Solar World AG. And Renault offered him an electric “Kangoo.” The objective was to make Vatican City – with some 600 inhabitants, but millions of visitors – self-sufficient energetically and to have “zero” impact on the environment.
The Pope of “Laudato Si’” (2015) who had his shoes deposited at Paris on the occasion of the UN Conference on the environment, will use this zero emission of CO2 car for brief trips, but he will keep the “popemobile” for his usual outings.
This “Leaf” Nissan is equipped with a photovoltaic panel to keep the freshness of the passenger compartment when stopping and an intelligent charging point, managed by mobile telephone, which enables the batteries to be recharged in about an hour, specified the Italian press.
In the wake of initiatives inspire by Laudato Si’, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences has just organized a colloquium on the theme of the right to water. And the Vatican is also pursuing its action, begun under John Paul II, against the desertification of the Sahel.
