In the spotlight: Getting to know our group members
Dr Claudia Zingerli, Head of ETH Sustainability at ETH Zurich, reflects on the success of the IARU Sustainability Initiative, for which she is the group lead.
The IARU Sustainability Initiative celebrates its 15th anniversary in 2024. The support from our presidents has always been and will be important to foster sustainability in our universities as well as in IARU. The expertise I am adding to this initiative is a holistic understanding of sustainability and a strong sense of connectivity and synergy.
While we have been successfully involved in promoting environmental sustainability, the social and economic issues have come into more focus. It will be important to communicate and strengthen the competence to deal with the connections and interrelations between the social, environmental and economic dimensions of all our actions by referring to the "3Ps” of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – i.e., people, planet, prosperity.
The benefits of an international network’s working group unfold when its members are active, present, articulate and visionary. The global span of IARU creates awareness and respect for the diversity of our institutions in their respective national contexts. At the same time, we share similar experiences and learn from each other through a Community of Practice.
In previous years, the IARU Sustainability Initiative published guidelines and statements. Thanks to our regular meetings, joint projects and preparations for conference sessions such as the International Sustainable Campus Network (ISCN) Conference, which will be held in June 2024, we are re-establishing a working mode where we feed our evidence-based approaches and experiences into the discourse about sustainability in academia and university operations.
I am sure that we will deliver interesting insights into our methodologies to enhance the transparency of supply chains, especially regarding greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity, social justice, our impact related to mobility and how we translate the Future of work into the present days.