Vice-Rector Heike Mayer explains in the video why the goal of climate neutrality concerns all members of the university community.

Dear colleauges and students

First of all, welcome to the new semester. I would like to introduce myself and invite you to join the community at the University of Bern on a journey towards a more sustainable future.

My name is Heike Mayer and for about a year, I have served the University of Bern as a Vice Rector for Quality and Sustainable Development. I am also a professor of economic geography and my research focuses on the ways in which cities and regions can develop sustainable economies.

The University of Bern is one of the leading higher education institutions in the realm of sustainable development, in Switzerland and abroad. We boast world-class scholarshiop in the fields of climate sciences and in a variety of aspects of sustainable development broadly understood. We also have a very strong emphasis on education in sustainable development.

In recent years, we implemented measures to reduce energy consumption and change mobility behavior. We would like to take the next step and take you on a journey to also become a more sustainable organization. And it is here, where we need your help and the participation of every member of our university community.

Starting this semester, we will embark on the development of a roadmap towards climate neutrality. We will give ourselves a bit more time than originally planned. And we would like to use this time to develop a roadmap that will guide us in the reduction of CO2 we cause and in the development climate protection measures.

We would like to develop this roadmap in a participatory way. This means that we will engage with every faculty and research center, but also with the central administration and with the groups representing students, PhDs, Post Docs and lecturers. We would like to discuss with you, how your constituencies can contribute to this roadmap and to the goal of climate neutrality.

Become climate neutral is not an easy task because it means that we have to signficantly reduce our CO2 emissions that we can directly influence. For example flights, but also the ways in which we work and recycle in laboratories or how we use energy. We invite each faculty to set an ambitious reduction goal.

At the same time, we will also engage in CO2 compensation. But this will be done in a new way. Besides traditional compensation measures through climate certificates, we will develop mechanisms of compensation that build on the unique strengths of a university: creativity and knowledge. Soon we will invite you to an ideas competition and to develop transdisciplinary projects.

The bottom line is that as a university we need to take action to also make a contribution in these times of climate crises.

I thank you for your contributions to make the University of Bern a more sustainable higher education institution.