I think the greatest sustainability challenges that we have today
are the impacts of climate change and how climate change can enhance a lot of
inequalities in our society today.
It is difficult to perceive this in everyday life,
because these issues are very abstract and complex
and manifest themselves in the long term.
For me, a future fit university embeds sustainability
into every aspect of its culture.
As a public institution, it must try to give something back to society.
The university should equip its students with all the necessary tools and
resources to make sustainable business decisions when they leave the university.
At the HSG, when we talk about sustainability, we really talk about
a very comprehensive view of sustainability.
So that involves the environmental dimensions but also
the social and ethical dimensions
and, of course, we can't ignore economy entirely.
The HSG aims to integrate these sustainability aspects into its core activities.
That includes teaching - or our curriculum -
as well as student engagement and co-curricular activities
and of course what's happening on campus
and our own research.
For environmental sustainability, we just set a new five-year strategy
in which we want to prepare our students, first of all, for the future world
where our students might have to face topics like climate change
and deal with them in business and other organization management.
There are several courses that deal with sustainability.
In 2020, the new certificate program "Managing Climate Solutions" was introduced.
Here, the students have the opportunity to address the global challenges
posed by climate change and to develop concrete solutions.
We have a strong history of a very active student body,
so our students, with organizations like oikos, like Student Impact,
have over the years been really strongly involved
in making sustainability a big part of our university.
A central goal of the University of St.Gallen is climate neutrality by 2030.
That involves everything from travel through to how we manage our IT,
what food we offer at the mensa and things like that.
Researchers throughout the university publish articles
that pertain to the global sustainability goals of the United Nations.
For example, at the Institute for Economy and the Environment
or at the Institute of Business Ethics
but also in other areas such as gender, leadership or mobility.
So as they say "it takes a village to raise a child",
it also takes a village to complete sustainability at a university
so we have many different people and many teams involved.
For example, we have the official team of people that work
for the delegate role for responsibility and sustainability.
But we also have a dedicated Climate Solutions Task Force.
Then, we also have a team of people who work on diversity and inclusion
and of course we have our so-called unsung heroes.
So these are the people that are behind the scenes working in services,
in administration,
in infrastructure and building - that are really making
sustainability happen on a day-to-day basis.
We published our 2020 UN PRME Report
because we are signatories of UN PRME.
In the UN PRME Report you will see how much we've achieved over the last two years
and also a bit of a peek into the future of what we plan to do in the coming years.
We continue building on our Sustainable Development Goals and integrating them
into our processes and we continue to really execute this famous line from HSG:
"From insight to impact"
Sustainability is a priority objective of the HSG.
As a business university, the HSG is committed to sustainability
in all areas.
We work «From insight to impact» - sustainably.
The University of St.Gallen makes its progress in the area of responsibility and sustainability
transparent.
Find out more in the 2020 PRME Report at unisg.link/prme