University of Kassel at the forefront of developing a sustainable university landscape

In doing so, the North Hessian university is signaling its great interest in networking with active universities. The aim is to contribute to the development of a more sustainable higher education landscape and drive the transformation process forward.

DG HochN was founded in April 2020 with the aim of supporting the UNESCO Education for Sustainable Development 2030 program in the German higher education system. The UNESCO program aims to ensure that all universities in Germany make sustainability and education for sustainable development in line with the Sustainable Development Goals a visible and effective expression of their work in research, teaching, operations, governance and transfer by 2030. All students in the German higher education system should be able to acquire a recognizable proportion of Education for Sustainable Development in their respective degree courses by 2030 at the latest.

The University of Kassel will take up this goal and build up research and teaching expertise on all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations at the Kassel Institute for Sustainability . The center, which is currently still under construction, is comprehensively dedicated to the topic of "Sustainable Development" and will introduce a consecutive Bachelor's and Master's degree course focused on the SDGs, which can also be studied in English. Various degree course options will enable students to combine a specialist subject with an SDG module.

As part of an operational re-start, the university will also set up a Green Office, which will further develop and drive forward the operational sustainability process. It will develop the university's own operations into a sustainable organization in order to achieve climate neutrality. This will incorporate findings from the areas of research and teaching. The Green Office will be set up as a central contact, organization and coordination point for all areas and members of the university in order to anchor the cross-cutting issue of sustainability in all internal and external operational processes.

In order to harness these developments in research, teaching and operations as well as the knowledge and expertise, dialog with society is sought via UniKasselTransfer in order to take up impulses and questions from here and solve them together with science. New formats are intended to bring together academics and students on the one hand and experts and practitioners from politics, business, culture, organized civil society and the regional public on the other.

This whole-institution approach is intended to help ensure that all members of the university are involved in the sustainability process at the University of Kassel via the university's core areas of research, teaching, operations and transfer.

Further information can be found at:  https://www.uni-kassel.de/uni/universitaet/profil/profil-umwelt-und-nachhaltigkeit/umwelt-und-nachhaltigkeit

Contact:
Nadine Chrubasik
Sustainability Manager
Integrated Sustainability Management in Operations
Phone: +49 561 804-2519
Email: chrubasik[at]uni-kassel[dot]de

Georg Mösbauer
Head of Occupational Safety and Environmental Protection Group
Representative for Occupational Safety, Health, Environmental Protection and Sustainability in the Company (AGUN)
Phone: +49 561 804-3811
Email: moesbauer[at]uni-kassel[dot]de