The report is over 100 pages long and, in addition to describing major successes and overall targets, also covers smaller achievements with the aim of motivating members to get involved. For example, the Student Representatives Council’s environmental group has installed a campus refrigerator in the Student House in Eichstätt. In an effort to reduce food waste, the idea of the refrigerator is for students to share products that they will not use – because they are going home for the weekend, for example – but someone else might. In addition, thanks to a partnership with Biohof Mayer, an organic farm in the nearby village of Preith, the refrigerator will also be stocked with fruit and vegetables every Wednesday during the semester.
The report also describes on-going research at the KU that focuses on topics such as sustainable lifestyles or sustainable farming on floodplains. Furthermore, it provides readers with practical examples of successful measures that have been implemented in campus management. For example, in 2015, the amount of paper used at the University was reduced by 20 percent compared to the previous year to around 23 metric tons. This is largely due to the library introducing book scanners, which means that students do not have to make paper copies of literature that they have found but can save scanned copies onto a USB stick free of charge instead. Although the KU has grown in terms of the number of members and the amount of space it uses compared to the previous year’s report, it was able to keep the amount of heating energy used constant by optimizing the heating systems.
The KU is also committed to stimulating discussion on and increasing interest in sustainable development. In addition to, for example, the Dialogue on Sustainability, the annual conference organized by the student organization Denknachhaltig!, and lectures by well-known speakers (including climate researcher Prof. Dr. Hartmut Graßl and the president of the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, Prof. Dr. Uwe Schneidewind), the University offered professional development courses for teachers on the effects of climate change in the Alps.
‘In our efforts, the attitude of each individual is important. If, through our commitment to sustainability, we are to bring about a small change within the University at first, and this is then communicated outside, that would be a great step forward,’ writes KU President Prof. Dr. Gabriele Gien in her introduction to the sustainability report. The full report is available in German at
http://www.ku.de/unsere-ku/nachhaltigehochschule/nachhaltigkeitberichte/