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lecture hall with a lot of students © Jürgen Huhn​/​TU Dortmund
Extensive activities

First Sustainability Report Published

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In the foreground one can see the green TU logo on the grass and in the background there is the Mathetower. © Nikolas Golsch​/​TU Dortmund
TU Dortmund University has published its first sustainability report. It demonstrates how the university fulfills its ecological and social responsibilities in the areas of research, teaching, administration, and operations. Additionally, the report aims to further promote university-wide dialog on sustainability. It will be publicly presented across the university on 23 September.

Sustainable action is a strategic goal of TU Dortmund University. As early as 2012, the Working Group Sustainability was established to enable university-wide dialog. In 2021, the Senate adopted a sustainability strategy for the university, outlining goals and plans for the future. Despite the COVID-19 crisis, the Sustainability Office at Campus Nord was opened in the same year under the leadership of Dr. Henning Moldenhauer.

In the newly published report, the staff of the Sustainability Office have comprehensively outlined the sustainability activities at TU Dortmund University in the areas of governance, operations, study and teaching, research, transfer, and social affairs. The report thus forms the basis for identifying development potentials and challenges in the individual fields.

Results of the sustainability report

A key result of the sustainability report is an inventory of the university’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2022. Of the 34,700 tons of CO2 , more than half (54%) is attributed to commuting, and another quarter (27%) is caused by heat production. By purchasing green electricity, the university has since saved around 20% of emissions. In the course of analyzing research activities, the Sustainability Office was also able to assign more than 500 publications by TU Dortmund University researchers from 2022 to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which is one in five: Internationally, TU Dortmund University focuses on SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure), SDG 4 (Quality Education), and SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities). Within the University Alliance Ruhr, research focuses on the challenges of the energy transition. For teaching, a keyword search among 8,000 courses in the winter semester 2021/2022 and summer semester 2022 revealed that around 240 courses dealt with sustainability topics, such as climate, environment, or justice. The studium oecologicum, an interdisciplinary certificate course for students of all departments, serves as a model.

The Sustainability Officer, Dr. Henning Moldenhauer, says: “As a university, TU Dortmund University serves as a model for socially, ecologically, and economically responsible action. Through scientific progress and the transfer of knowledge, it contributes to sustainability and the conservation of resources – as demonstrated by our first sustainability report.”

The sustainability report is available online and will also be publicly presented at the  Working Group Sustainability meeting on 23 September. Interested TU  members are invited to attend, ask questions, and participate in the discussion. The meeting will take place at 1 p.m. in room E.003 on Otto-Hahn-Straße 12.

Sustainability report

Editorial note: The information on the CO2 footprint was updated in January 2025. This was due to a subsequent correction in the sustainability report, in which the number of students and employees was adjusted for double counting, e.g. auxiliary staff. As a result, the extrapolation of  CO2 emissions caused by members' commuting was slightly lower than in the first version from August 2024. 

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