Aside from a short lunch break, both of these days were filled with scheduled events. I visited the Centre for Sustainability Management, the mobility officer at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, and the Institute for Ecology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every day I walked through the bitter cold through the beautiful old town of L\u00fcneburg for about 40 minutes to the university and then back at the end of the day, my \u201cactive break\u201d before and after work. Despite the icy temperatures and snow, there were always many L\u00fcneburgers of every age out on their bicycles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Leuphana is a young university with about 9,000 students \u2013 roughly 14.5 percent of them international students \u2013 about 700 teachers (170 of them professors) and approximately 460 staff members in administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The guiding principle of Leuphana is based on three fundamental concepts: humanism, sustainability, and action orientation. For the university, sustainability represents an integrated and continuous challenge. In order to research the full breadth of this topic and to offer a wide variety of curriculums related to it, Leuphana has Europe\u2019s first and at present only School for Sustainability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Until the mid-1990s, the main campus was used as a barracks for the German military and consisted of 24 traditional, strictly arranged brick buildings. Between them are now bright, modern lecture and library buildings, green areas, and a biotope. The university uses 100 percent green power, is supplied with regenerative heat, and has photo-voltaic systems installed on ten of its buildings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Leuphana\u2019s main building is in keeping with the university\u2019s commitment to offer a campus that is exemplary in its sustainability. The new main building was presented at the 2010 Expo Shanghai as one of the world\u2019s most energy-efficient public structures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The innovative and groundbreaking new building is remarkable for its energetic quality, its heating and cooling performance, its energy-saving and self-shading fa\u00e7ade, an intelligent user-friendly building-control system, an efficient ventilation concept, and low-energy use for the optimised integration into the campus energy system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The energy necessary for operations \u2013 like on the entire campus \u2013 is supplied from renewable sources. Heat comes from a power station operated with biogas, and solar panels on the campus buildings supply additional electricity that already covers 25 percent of total consumption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n CO\u2082 lights in the offices: Until recently, the windows only opened when the needle was in the red area. It was then modified so that the windows can now be opened even when the needle is not in the red area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All light sources are controlled by a movement sensor; they cannot be turned off manually, which was a problem in a seminar where a film was shown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Note: In a \u201csmart, self-thinking building\u201d, people should control the technology and not the other way around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All of the washrooms have only cold water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Heating is controlled centrally, and the room temperature is generally 20 \u00b0C. In some seminar rooms, presence detectors control heating and light, and the heating turns off automatically when windows are open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LED lighting throughout: since 2014, Leuphana has covered 20 percent of its annual electricity needs with solar-power systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Administration<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In January 2017, a centralised procurement system was put in place. All purchases must be planned in advance, and this applies to everything from pens to biscuits to the coffee served to visitors. This has often caused great annoyance, but the argument supporting this policy is always: \u201cWe survive on tax money, after all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Note: Invoices are handled in a very complicated manner: paper forms must be filled out for every individual invoice, and we at the mdw are light years ahead of this. There was great astonishment about our electronic invoice system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The conference from Wednesday to Friday (28 February\u20132 March 2018)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Ahead of the opening of the conference, a forum was held in the morning called \u201cLebenswelt Universit\u00e4t\u201d. This was organised by the Senate Commission on Sustainability for all university employees in order to promote sustainable campus development. I was invited to contribute to one of the workshops, whose themes were \u201cSpaces of Encounter\u201d, \u201cConsumption\u201d, \u201cPromoting Thoughts and Ideas\u201d, and \u201cHealth\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The workshops were all led by teachers at Leuphana. The suggestions developed in the various workshops were presented in front of the individual groups as well as in a larger setting at the conference. The officer for environmental affairs then passed the ideas on to the Presidential Committee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I opted for \u201cConsumption\u201d and was pleased that with regard to sustainable events, I was able to contribute a great deal from the mdw. All workshop participants were very enthusiastic about our \u201cfair<\/em>anstalten\u201d seal of quality. There was then a panel discussion about internal communication and networking (that seems to be a problem everywhere), and I was very proud to be able to tell the group about our mentoring and job-rotation programme. I was asked to supply more information via email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Opening of the conference<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The conference was opened by the Orchester des Wandels along with a video installation by the university students in front of 1,100 guests in the auditorium of the main building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What is the conference week?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Each year beginning in October, over 1,500 first-semester students investigate the future according to topic headings. During the conference, they present their insights from the module \u201cScience Bears Responsibility\u201d to Leuphana and the entire city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Leuphana\"](\"https:\/\/mdw.ac.at\/internationalblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/leuphana.jpg\")
<\/a>Leuphana University<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The campus and the main building (designed by Daniel Libeskind)<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>Sustainability in the main building<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Disadvantages<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Sustainability\/special features of the campus<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n