The Green Office is coming! [16.04.24]
Students have been campaigning for this since 2019: Now the idea is being implemented! A new Green Office is to start work at the University of Hohenheim this summer semester. But what exactly is it? What is planned? And what is the current status? We met the future head of the Green Office and a student from the Sustainability Working Group (AKN) for coffee.
More about the sustainability semester "Besser wär besser GREEN"...
Interview:
- Judith Blätter, Bachelor's student of Agricultural Science and member of the Sustainability Working Group (AKN)
- Anna-Lena Müller-Wengerofsky, Head of the Green Office
Judith, I'll start with you, because students from the Sustainability Working Group brought the idea of the Green Office to the University of Hohenheim.
The first Green Office was set up at the University of Maastricht in 2010. Since then, universities all over Europe have taken up the idea. Could you briefly explain: What is a Green Office?
Judith: Even if each university has a different focus, the basic idea is always similar: the Green Office is intended to be a platform that brings people and ideas together to make the campus more sustainable. Student initiatives find support here, as do employees from the administration - or researchers and teaching staff.
The university cosmos is so diverse and you usually only get to see a small part of it. In short, the Green Office should help us not to keep reinventing the wheel when it comes to sustainability issues, but to achieve more together as a large community.
As a minimum, a Green Office needs a permanent manager, a team of student employees and a space that is as central as possible on campus so that the Green Office is an open place for all members of the university.
Greenfluencer of the week: Anna-Lena Müller-Wengerofsky | Do Green Offices also carry out sustainability projects themselves? Judith: It always depends on how the Green Office is designed at the respective university location. However, one thing is clear: sustainability is not an issue that can be completely delegated to a central office. Otherwise we would need an incredible number of people there! And ultimately, it's all about acting sustainably in all areas and implementing sustainable projects everywhere. A fellow student from AKN once put it like this: The Green Office should be like a trampoline. You jump on it, get new energy - and at some point you find the jump again to pursue ideas yourself. In fact, the AKN has been campaigning for quite some time for the University of Hohenheim to have a Green Office, right? Judith: You could say that. Several generations of students are already involved in the topic. I did some research: in 2019, members of the AKN came into contact with the idea for the first time during a hiking coaching session organized by Netzwerk n. It quickly became clear to them: we need something like this in Hohenheim too! After all, sustainability is part of our university profile. |
We think you should notice that immediately when you're on campus! So we not only need research on the topic of sustainability, but also a living culture of sustainability at the University! In our view, there is still a lot of potential here - and the Green Office can be a key to this.
From the very beginning, lecturers were also among the supporters. In order to promote the idea, we have written a position paper in recent years, held several discussions with the university management, organized discussion events and actively participated in the university's strategy process.
Finally, the "Green Office" was officially included in the new structure and development plan (German: Struktur- und Entwicklungsplan, short: SEP), in which the university has set out its goals up to 2027. We were very pleased about this - and we are of course happy to continue to be involved when it comes to the concrete design.
Grüne Ideen für den Campus |
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Lasst uns gemeinsam Energie & CO2 sparen und den Campus nachhaltiger machen! Neuste Einträge:
Alle Einträge werden geprüft, beantwortet - und falls möglich weiterverfolgt. Mehr... |
After a long process, things are suddenly moving very quickly: the Green Office is to be set up this summer semester.
And the newly appointed head of the Green Office is already sitting at the table with us today: Anna-Lena, it's great to have you here! Can you give us an update on the current status?
Anna-Lena: With pleasure! And thank you, Judith, for summarizing the basic ideas of the Green Office so well!
The framework conditions from an organizational perspective are developing rapidly and are becoming clearer day by day. The President's Office has set up a 50% position for the Green Office and provided funding for student staff members, for example.
We are also currently in the process of clarifying which room the Green Office will move into. It is also important to me that it is an open space with a welcoming atmosphere where people can brainstorm together over a coffee or tea - a sustainable one, of course. The Green Office should be a workspace, a contact point, a place of inspiration - simply a space of possibilities.
I hope we can provide an update on this soon. We will also be able to advertise the positions for student staff members soon. Anyone interested can also send an email in advance to greenoffice@uni-hohenheim.de.
And has the concept for the Hohenheim Green Office already been finalized?
Anna-Lena: In outline. It is important to me to create a good basis on which we can then build.
The development of the Green Office and the actual work of the Green Office will definitely be very participatory, because only together can we promote the culture or cultures of sustainability at the university. Over the coming months, we will be fleshing out many details, such as the strategy process, step by step.
Kontakt Green Office |
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Anna-Lena Müller-Wengerofsky |
I am very much looking forward to receiving input from students, employees and researchers! One thing is already clear: this input will remain extremely important for the Green Office in the future. Because as Judith has already said: Sustainability is a real cross-cutting issue.
In Hohenheim, we made a conscious decision to include the ecological, economic and social perspectives on sustainability in the Green Office.
Based on the so-called "whole-institution approach", we do not want to exclude any fields of action, but actually bring all green threads together: Academic Affairs, Operations & Infrastructure, Research & Innovation, Governance & Structure as well as the transfer within the university but also from society and into society.
Overarching or accompanying fields of action are, for example, transparency, participation and, of course, student engagement.
Tu Grünes und rede darüber! |
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In der Reihe "Hohenheimer Greenfluencer" stellen wir jede Woche Menschen vor, die einen Beitrag dazu leisten, den Campus nachhaltiger zu machen. Dabei spielt keine Rolle, ob es sich um kleine Beispiele aus dem Alltag oder größere innovative Projekte handelt. Selbst mitmachen? |
How can committed members of the university get involved in concrete terms?
Anna-Lena: I could imagine the Green Office being accompanied by several Green Groups that act as topic-specific think tanks and are open to committed members of the university from all areas.
The spokespersons of the groups together form a Green Board that ensures networking between the individual groups. This is because many topics are naturally not clearly defined and affect different areas of the university.
What I'm really pleased about is that the members of the University of Hohenheim are very motivated when it comes to sustainability, have great ideas, enormous expertise and want to promote the topic. The topic also enjoys strong support from the university management and will be even more strongly represented at this level in the coming weeks.
For example, what could be possible initial topics for the Green Office?
Anna-Lena: I see an important task for the Green Office in making sustainability topics more visible and therefore more usable. In my opinion, the University of Hohenheim really does have "green DNA", but you often have to search to find out what we are already doing.
One possible goal in this context could be to carry out a kind of mapping, e.g. using the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This means that we take a closer look at our individual areas of activity and develop a presentation that shows at a glance who is making the university greener and where.
I also think it makes a lot of sense to bundle important goals, key figures and ongoing projects relating to sustainability in a central "Green Report" and present them clearly on the website. This not only gives us an overview, but also avoids duplication of work, as such data is always needed for various reports.
Even though we already have a lot of sustainability activities, there's always room for improvement, right?
Anna-Lena: Exactly. If we think about the Academic Affairs and Transfer fields of action, I think it would be very exciting, for example, to offer a cross-course program involving departments from all three faculties - this could be a kind of sustainability certificate or a series of lectures, which would certainly also be very interesting for employees or interested citizens from the neighboring districts.
Of course, the Green Office should also help to ensure that good ideas for more sustainable campus operations are put into practice. Suggestions are being sought until mid-July on the "Besser wär besser GREEN" ideas platform.
And of course there are also ideas for research, for governance and so on...
We are already very excited! And we are delighted that we can work together with the Green Office as part of the "Besser wär besser GREEN" semester of action!
Anna-Lena: I am also very excited and think the campaign fits in perfectly with the launch of the Green Office. Thank you very much for your commitment!
My impression is that there really are a lot of exciting ideas on campus. But it's not always the case that someone immediately feels able to put the ideas into practice. When the first hurdles arise, this understandably dampens motivation and good ideas are quickly forgotten. A few years later, it is not uncommon to start all over again with the same topic in a different place.
Of course, we can't deal with all sustainability-related topics in the Green Office - especially not at the same time. But we help to maintain an overview and bring the right people together. And we want to provide impetus. Especially when plan A doesn't work and alternatives need to be found.
Judith, is all of this in line with what you want from the Green Office?
Judith: I really like the approach - and we're really looking forward to exchanging ideas. Because of course there are many more ideas.
When it comes to teaching, for example, we think it would be very important to motivate even more lecturers to integrate sustainability topics into their own courses. After all, the transformation we need as a society affects almost all areas. Sustainable approaches are often particularly important in areas where they are not obvious at first glance or have rarely been addressed.
Our impression is that more teachers would like to try something like this out, but are not sure how best to do so. Special workshops or further training could help here.
And how could the Green Office support student groups?
Judith: There are many possibilities!
One major challenge, for example, is the high fluctuation in the groups. Whenever someone leaves, a lot of knowledge is lost. It is often enough for an active person to be on a semester abroad for a project to come to a standstill or for an event not to take place. It would help a lot if the concentrated organizational knowledge was also available via the Green Office - and certain things could be taken over centrally by student assistants.
We also want the Green Office to be a truly open place where everyone feels welcome and where ideas of all kinds are heard. Of course, we students tick very differently to employees in the administration, for example. I hope that we students can also come along with a half-baked idea or a utopia - and that we can then think creatively around the corner together!
We will report back. Thank you very much for the interview!
Interview: Leonhardmair
