Committed to sustainability
There is a wide variety of initiatives dedicated to selected sustainability topics at ETH Zurich. ETH Sustainability makes these visible and has created a new offer for encounter and exchange with the biweekly Open Office Hours.
Today, both a thick catalogue of SDG-related lectures and a large number of start-ups that address challenges with promising ideas and technologies bear witness to the diffusion of sustainability topics in teaching and research at ETH Zurich. There is also a wide range of research on sustainable development topics. Specifically, there are at least five chairs that bear the term "sustainable" in their name, and many more that deal with sustainability. Institutionalised bodies such as ETH Sustainability in the Office of the ETH President or the units such as Engineering and Systems, Campus Services, Safety, Health, Environment (SGU) and Real Estate (Campus Development) in the Vice President's Office of Infrastructure as well as the Diversity Office in the Vice President's Office of Personnel and Leadership have been committed to a holistic understanding of sustainability at ETH Zurich for almost two decades. In doing so, they take into account sustainability in its ecological, social and economic dimensions within the reference framework of the global Agenda 2030 with its 17 sustainability goals.
Sustainability initiatives of the ETH community
However, the desire for participation is great and therefore further initiatives are constantly being formed among students, in expert groups and in departments. At the Sustainability Summits, which the Student Sustainability Committee (SSC, formerly Project 21) organised twice in 2022, around 15 active groups presented themselves.
Representatives of GreenLab Zurich and VCS, for example, are looking at practices in biology and chemistry laboratories, where they see great potential for a more conscious use of substances, materials, energy and space. The departments D-ARCH, D-BAUG, D-BSSE, D-MAVT, D-PHYS and D-USYS have created their own activities or informal "sustainability offices". With mandates from the respective departmental conferences, they have, for example, introduced carbon taxes on flights, added sustainability-related lectures to curricula or drawn up far-reaching codes of conduct.
“The department D-BAUG has a motto: engineering a sustainable world. Maybe it's too bold, but that’s what we all strive for.”Guillaume Habert, Professor for Sustainable Construction
Fresh ideas for sustainable everyday action
Initiatives such as external page Seed City or external page VELOVE have emerged from the everyday realities of the students. They provide concrete support for biodiversity on the Hönggerberg campus and for zero-emission and health-promoting mobility by conventional bicycles. Other initiatives, such as Who Cares?, promote exchange between generations and put role models in the spotlight. Some programmes focus on building competences in sustainability (Prisma, external page Ideation, external page Rootlinks). Others are creative and active in concrete thematic fields such as circular economy (external page Circular Horizon, EQUIPSENT, Precious plastic). A common theme is to promote togetherness and thus the social dimension of sustainability.
Visibility and networking
At present, all of this happens alongside or during a jam-packed study, research and teaching routine. This often leaves little room for networking and visibility among the numerous initiatives. The new website Active for Sustainability offers an updated overview. The improved visibility and accessibility should help to get to know the ideas, goals and forces of these initiatives better, to network and to use synergies in order to jointly tackle the major challenges for a sustainable and climate-friendly university.
And: For all interested parties, ETH Sustainability has been offering Open Office Hours approximately every two weeks since November 2022 - in the new office on the B floor at Weinbergstrasse 41. Here people talk and laugh with each other. They formulate ideas and needs or put frustrations into words. Activities and projects are further developed and common ground is created so that sustainability at ETH becomes even more commonplace and develops an even stronger authenticity and charisma both internally and externally.
“Compared to my first involvement at ETH 20 years ago, sustainability has a completely different status today. This is an important prerequisite for the further development of the university.”Claudia Zingerli, Head ETH Sustainability
Do you know of other initiatives that are not mentioned on Active for Sustainability? Do you have solution-oriented ideas for which there is currently no framework at ETH? We look forward to your comments and suggestions.
Contact
Office of the President
ETH Sustainability
Weinbergstrasse 41
WES B13
8092
Zürich
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