Successful ETH Sustainability Summit

Initiated by the Student Sustainability Committee (SSC), the ETH Sustainability Summit has been offering a platform for exchange for initiatives and projects from the ETH environment with an explicit sustainability focus since 2022. This year, the event took place on a much larger scale and for the first time with a supporting program.

SSC and ETH Sustainability kicked off the event with a presentation of their areas of responsibility and current projects. ETH Sustainability also took the opportunity to look back on the highlights of the past year - including the ETH Netto Null roadmap, Open Your Eyes and an outlook for 2024 (stay tuned).

Rector Günther Dissertori then addressed the audience. In his speech, he spoke in particular about ETH's responsibility and role model function in the fight against climate change and thanked the initiatives for their relentless efforts. A unique example of this year's commitment is the SSC's Vision2030 paper, which the authors presented in the evening and officially handed over to Günther Dissertori. In seven chapters, the SSC analyzes the situation at ETH from the students' perspective - from teaching and participatory processes to infrastructure, mobility and nutrition - and draws a vision for the future with concrete measures and examples.

In the keynote speech that followed, Professor André Bardow pointed out in a humorous way the magnitude of the challenge of ETH net zero - and that this can only be achieved with combined forces and a great deal of concerted and focused effort.

Special thanks went to Professor Sonia Seneviratne, who has worked as a delegate for sustainability in recent months to ensure that the topic is widely integrated at ETH. Due to an appointment to the Executive Board of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), she unfortunately had to resign. Preparations are underway for her successor.

At the end of the official part, selected initiatives presented themselves in entertaining short pitches. The current overview of all initiatives can be found at https://ethz.ch/en/the-eth-zurich/sustainability/aktiv-fuer-nachhaltigkeit.html.

Do you also want to campaign for more sustainability at ETH - or are you perhaps already working on an initiative but have only just heard about the ETH Sustainability Summit?
Feel free to visit us in the Open Office Hours or send us an e-mail to sustainability@ethz.ch so that we can get to know each other.