You’ve reached the end of our first Sustainability Progress Report (2021), and we hope it’s given you a clear enough impression of what the EUR Sustainability Programme involves. The report is but a brief summary, and an incomplete one at that, as there’s so much happening and involves so many people!
Our journey towards a sustainable university began many years ago, when we installed our very first solar panels, swapped single-use cups for reusable ones, and EUR academics began incorporating sustainability in their respective disciplines. We’ve come a long way since, but the challenges of the climate crisis and other environmental problems have also become more insistent and complex, and we will continue to do everything we can to respond accordingly.
Informed by the ambitions described in the Strategy 2024 document, which includes “Taking Responsibility on Sustainable Development” as a pillar, we have set our sights on the following: increasing inter- and transdisciplinary approaches in our academic work, embedding sustainability in everything we do by default, and doubling our efforts with respect to our own behaviour and habits, all of which is crucial to our becoming the sustainability leader we want to be.
For 2022 and beyond, we will focus our efforts on the energy management of our buildings, greening our campus and commutes, and increasing the sustainability/transition content of our academic work. Our community – students, staff, the university council – demands it, and will be a necessary part of making it happen. Our leadership is committed to both leading the way to sustainability by making the means to reaching our destination available and supporting associated initiatives originating in the community.
We invite all Erasmians to get involved: from here on in, let us all stick to making sustainable choices with respect to our studies, teaching, what we eat, how we get about and what we buy, both in our personal lives and on campus!
If you have any suggestions for future editions, please contact us at Sustainble@eur.nl.
