How to make TU/e a more sustainable university
TU/e has put together a Sustainability Core Team to bring order to the chaos of good intentions to be or become a sustainable university. Students are welcome to contact the Go Green Office to gain or develop ideas. Five study associations have already signed the single-use plastic covenant.
There is so much going on at TU/e in terms of sustainability that you can hardly see the forest for the trees. Just a few examples: student teams building solar vehicles, researchers processing diaper waste into concrete, using Billie Cups in the canteens and collecting coffee grounds separately for recycling. But there is also much left to do: there is no policy in place for sustainable business travel, not every lecture hall has energy-efficient LED lighting yet, and not every student is taught about climate change.
But now, a Sustainability Core Team has been established that is going to draw up an overview of all the different sustainability projects and initiatives that are being undertaken in the areas of education, research, governance and operations.
In 2018, TU/e was named the most sustainable institution in Dutch higher education. In 2022, it placed 7th and Erwin Kerkhof, sustainability advisor at Real Estate, is very pleased with this. “This means we’re back on track after ranking 19th. We were leading the way but we fell behind because we didn’t have an overarching vision. We’re putting a lot of effort into that now, for example by appointing Sustainability Ambassador Anna Wieczorek, and we’re already getting back on our feet.”
Making a university sustainable is not an easy task. Lotte Meijer, a member of the Sustainability Core Team, offers the following definition of sustainability: “Create the best possible life for yourself without limiting the lives of future generations.”
This article was originally posted on the Cursor. Read more of this article via this link.