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Together with the other thirteen universities in the Association of Universities in the Netherlands, Utrecht ľ�ϸ���Ӱ�� has declared its support for the recently published . By now, this letter has been signed by over 1200 employees of Dutch universities, including roughly 140 employees of Utrecht ľ�ϸ���Ӱ��.

This spring, the Sustainability Programme of Utrecht ľ�ϸ���Ӱ�� will invite the signers personally so they can investigate together with Corporate Real Estate & Campus (V&C) and Facility Services (FSC) how we can further integrate their knowledge and ideas into the university-wide sustainability strategy and operational management.

The IPCC report shows that the consequences of even only a 2-degree rise in temperature are big and partially irreversible.

Meaningful step

The letter firmly calls on the universities to carry out an ambitious climate agenda themselves. Heleen de Coninck, an Associate Professor of Innovation studies at Radboud ľ�ϸ���Ӱ�� and a co-author of the most recent IPCC-rapport () is clear about the task at hand: “The IPCC report shows that the consequences of even only a 2-degree rise in temperature are big and partially irreversible. We are now heading for more than 3 degrees. If there's no quick intervention on all levels, one and a half degrees will soon be out of reach. The universities are also a factor in this, which is why broad support for this letter is a meaningful step.”

Ambitions in progress

Besides the sustainability research of Utrecht ľ�ϸ���Ӱ��, united in the research theme Pathways to Sustainability, and the degree programmes in sustainability, we have also made quite a number of meaningful steps on the path to a CO₂-neutral university in the past year.

On top of the already existing thermal-storage network (WKO), the university will apply this technology to all renovation and new-estate projects from now on. Future buildings will supply energy and become circular; construction materials can then be reused. Besides thermal storage and solar energy, 2018 also marked our first purchase of vertogas: a biogas that is made by adding yeast to organic materials such as fertiliser.

In operational management, the past year saw the introduction of vegetarian lunches in meetings, and electrical cars and scooters were put into use. were removed from the vending machines in the beginning of this year. Since 2018, plane trips are compensated and the university works with academics from the Copernicus Institute and the Faculty of Law, Economics and Governance to further interpret the air-travel policy.

In the meantime, the Green Office Utrecht works on sustainability awareness among students and employees, and opened an annex in the inner city in 2018. 

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The goal of these and other measures is to further reduce the CO₂ impact of the university, with the ambition to be climate neutral by 2030. Despite all steps that have been taken, there is still quite a lot of work to do. It is obvious that the university uses the knowledge of its own researchers for this.

As far as I'm concerned, we can definitely add another notch.

Fiona van ´t Hullenaar, Director of Real Estate & Campus at Utrecht ľ�ϸ���Ӱ��, says: “We continuously try to make connections between the knowledge of our academics and our work in progress. We are already doing that with themes such as solar panels and geothermal studies. As far as I'm concerned, we can definitely add another notch.”

That is also why Michiel Scherrenburg, the manager of the Sustainability Programme of Utrecht ľ�ϸ���Ӱ��, is happy with the Utrecht-based signers: “I'm happy that these employees and academics feel the urgency to move forward alongside us and speak out in favour of a sustainable university. We really need their knowledge and experience in this. We want to organise these meetings exactly because we want to realise more joint projects between science and operational management.”