Going green at FAU

The FAU Green Office

At FAU sustainability is not only the focus of research in a number of different areas, it is a guiding principle behind the way we work, teach, and go about our daily lives. The Green Office assists the University in its efforts.

In a climate protection concept drafted in November 2019, the Students’ Representatives called for a Green Office to be established. Under the guidance of Sebastian Hemmer, the Executive Board did precisely that and several goals have already been reached.

Education for sustainable development

Last year, the Green Office and the Centre for Teacher Training launched the Education for Sustainable Development idea challenge at FAU. Students were able to send in their ideas for sustainable teaching with the theme of ‘How and what should be taught in your subject to encourage education for sustainable development?’ One of the winning ideas was to hold a brainstorming session to gather ideas for compulsory elective modules in degree programmes related to medicine. The Green Office assisted students from Health for Future to organise this exchange of ideas on the topic ‘the climate crisis in our hospitals’, focusing on ways to incorporate climate protection into healthcare services.

FAU is a fair trade university

The Green Office is more than just a point of contact for students who want to voice their ideas on the topic of sustainability at the University. It also supports a number of initiatives at FAU. For example, FAU has successfully applied for the title ‘Fair trade university’. One prerequisite is that FAU offers only fair trade products at official events and in its cafeterias and student restaurants.

As well as projects such as these, the Green Office is also working on funding strategies for climate-effective measures. These measures include, for example, installing more photovoltaic systems at FAU or renovating buildings to make them more energy efficient. The Green Office cooperates particularly closely with technical areas at FAU such as the building, environmental and construction management or energy controlling teams and reports back to the Executive Board. The aim is to make FAU a climate neutral university as quickly as possible.

New: Coordinator for sustainability management

‘We are like a vortex that sucks ideas in and scatters them out again to put them into practice,’ explains Dr. Kathrin Fuhrmann. She has been the coordinator for sustainability management at FAU since September 2020, and is part of the team at the Green Office.

She hopes to publish a sustainability magazine at the end of next year. The magazine will focus on the sustainability projects currently underway at FAU and environmentally friendly ways of studying, working and researching.

A climate protection concept for FAU

The Green Office is currently preparing a funding application for a climate protection concept at FAU. Climate protection concepts indicate goals and measures aimed at reducing greenhouse emissions and reaching national climate protection objectives at the local level. All relevant stakeholders, both internal and external, have to be involved and it is necessary to draw up an energy and greenhouse gas balance and a catalogue of measures. Dr. Fuhrmann sees this as an opportunity for the many experts running operations behind the scenes to come together in a central environmental committee and decide on joint measures for shaping our FAU in future.

If FAU is to become a climate-neutral university, it is crucial that the whole of FAU works together, emphasises Dr. Kathrin Fuhrmann. ‘We can only encourage sustainability at FAU in the long term if everyone works together: students, staff, lecturers and researchers alike.’

from Nina Bundels

The topics of the new issue are: Database systems and research at FAU, iris implants made from artificial muscles, a drug against Long-COVID, the European University EELISA, in which universities from Europe have joined forces to think engineering further, the second part of our series on FAU strategy, the new Green Office and much more.