ETH Sustainability to be realigned

Sustainability is perhaps the field of action that is the most challenging for ETH Zurich, both scientifically and institutionally. After all, as a publicly financed, top-ranking global university, ETH has a responsibility to society – for example, when it comes to using resources responsibly or reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the university must not only work towards solutions through its teaching, research and innovation, but also take concrete actions of its own. It follows that not only are the ETH departments and a growing number of competence centres now working on solutions to enable sustainable development, but the university also has sustainability goals for campus and infrastructure development (including mobility, catering and procurement): “Sustainability is part of the culture at ETH,” the 2021–2024 Strategy and Development Plan states in this regard: “Furthermore, we live up to sustainable values on our own campus and promote the idea of using ETH as a living lab.”

The importance of sustainability for ETH Zurich is reflected in the fact that it has been organisationally assigned to the ETH President since 2008 – first as the ETH Sustainability staff unit, and since 1 January 2020 as the ETH Sustainability team within the Office of the President. Today, ETH Sustainability coordinates the sustainability activities of ETH Zurich with the aim of increasing the part the university plays in sustainable development and communicating this internally and externally. This includes, in particular, the ETH Sustainability Report, which was first published in 2011 and reports comprehensively on the ecological, economic and social aspects of sustainability at ETH. It also includes the public lecture cycle on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), organised in cooperation with the Environmental System Sciences (D-USYS) and the ETH for Development initiative (ETH4D), which will take place for the third time in the Spring Semester of 2022.

Not all tasks relating to sustainability reside in the Office of the President. The aspects of campus sustainability that concern health, real estate, building services, sustainable mobility, computer systems, accessibility, green spaces and environmental management sit in the Infrastructure Executive Board domain; sustainable finance and procurement are in Finance & Controlling; and diversity is in Personnel Development and Leadership.

Air travel and ETH Week to switch Executive Board domain

The past two years have seen personnel- and content-related developments that directly influence ETH Sustainability’s future direction, tasks and responsibilities.

For instance, in late summer 2021, two long-standing employees of great merit in the field of sustainability left ETH Zurich: Christine Bratrich, director of ETH Sustainability, and Susann Görlinger, project manager for the air travel project “Stay grounded, keep connected”, with which ETH Zurich became a model for many universities in Switzerland and elsewhere for how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from business air travel. What is new is that the air travel project is moving from the Office of Infrastructure to ETH Sustainability. Both positions were re-advertised in November and December. Since 1 September 2021, Omar Kassab has been leading the ETH Sustainability team ad interim.

Furthermore, change is coming to ETH Sustainability’s “teaching activities”:

• The ETH Week, which sees students working together in interdisciplinary teams for a week at a time on a socially relevant topic, has been assigned wholly to the Rectorate as of 1 January 2022.
• The ETH Sustainability Summer School, in which students work on current sustainability-related topics in interdisciplinary and intercultural teams, has been affiliated with ETH for Development (ETH4D) as of 1 January 2022.

ETH Sustainability coordinates the “Net Zero” programme

Another area that came in for analysis in the past year are the interfaces with other organisational units at ETH that deal with sustainability, such as the Environmental Commission and the new Engineering and Systems department, which is assuming responsibility for the technologies connected with the laboratories and buildings. This included discussing how these interfaces could be designed differently in the future. As a result of these discussions, ETH Sustainability is to be realigned and reorganised. This plan was recently noted by the Executive Board.

Accordingly, ETH Sustainability will take on the task of coordinating the university-wide Net Zero programme in the future. As formulated as an objective in the 2021–2024 Strategy and Development Plan, this stipulates that ETH Zurich should reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 percent by 2030 compared to the baseline year of 2006. Work is underway to determine the most effective way to meet this net zero target. With regard to the net zero target, ETH Sustainability is supported as before by the Associate Vice President for Sustainability, Reto Knutti, Professor of Climate Physics (D-USYS). He will continue to help network ETH’s own sustainability measures with teaching, research and society. He will also serve as the interface to the departments, professorships and competence centres that bear the main share of ETH’s sustainability performance by researching new approaches for long-term, sustainable use of resources and the environment.

Ultimately, all members of the ETH community can play a part on the path to climate neutrality. For example, in the “Sustainable Gastronomy” project, which the Gastronomy Commission approved on 29 September 2021, and which ETH Sustainability is now leading (see also life 4 / 2021). This will replace the previous “Climate Programme for ETH Catering” as of January 2022. In addition to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it includes other sustainability aspects relating to the environment, society and health (e.g. regionality, food waste or fair trade).