The Leibniz Association with its institutes contributes in a unique way to sustainable solutions on the climate crises in diverse areas. But research itself is often resource-intensive as well. In this context, PhDs and PostDocs of Leibniz like Hyunjin Park , doctoral researcher at ATB, formed a working group on sustainability to to work out a position paper that enforces sustainable change in the daily scientific life. In this way, they want to support bottom-up change processes as well as leaded and guided sustainability management within scientif institutions.
In March 2023 the Working Group Sustainability published its position paper. The group says, the paper could work as a blueprint to inspire employee-based initiatives like the working group itself. In their position paper, they first call for a uniform definition of climate neutrality, to which the entire Leibniz Association as well as other research communities in Germany have committed themselves by 2035. Due to their heterogeneous composition, the members of the working group were not only able to contribute broad economic, ecological and methodological expertise, but also to identify everyday problems in the heterogenious institutes. They derive immediate measures from this, such as the conversion to renewable energy and heat supply or biodiverse campus design. They extend these with long-term measures such as strong lobbying to reduce barriers through laws and regulations in transforming infrastructure towoards sustainability.
Overall, the paper deals with the topics:
- Energy & building infrastructure,
- Resource management (Water Use, Procurement & Waste),
- Research & administration,
- Employee mobility,
- Event management and
- Knowledge Transfer
Here you can download the full position paper:
Sustainability at ATB
Of course, the ATB is also facing the challenges to become sustainable. With its research and development project for a heating system using wood chips from own short-rotation coppices, we have already been able to take a big step toward on-site production of heat supply. In addition, a working group for sustainability is also being formed at the ATB, initially to identify the greatest potentials with which we can save resources. This is the first step toward a strategy that meets our sustainability requirements.