The UAS Grisons acts and develops responsibly. It is guided by the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs for short, which were adopted by the United Nations in 2015 for all member states and thus also by Switzerland. These goals take into account the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development in a balanced way. On today's SDG Flag Day, organisations, companies, communities, schools, and governments around the world are committing to contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals - including UAS Grisons. "In our ‘sustainable development thinking and acting tank’, we want to support, concretise and implement the sustainability discourse together with stakeholders from business and society. To this end, we are strengthening our networks both externally and internally this year," says Prof. Dr. Ulrike Zika, sustainability officer and member of the university management.

This is a goal that the university has been pursuing for years. In 2009, for example, the UAS Grisons became the first Swiss university to join the "Principles for Responsible Management Education", a sustainability initiative of the United Nations. To promote the competencies of students and employees in sustainable development, for example, an SDG quiz was conducted during the last two weeks. Question by question, university members were able to explore sustainability at UAS Grisons and test their knowledge. Today at 12 noon, prizes will be awarded to the winners. On Thursday, the university management will unveil a sustainability declaration that has been developed with input from students and employees, thus presenting the university's stance and concretising its implementation.

Integrate principles of sustainable development into studies and research

As an educational and research institution, the UAS Grisons sees itself as responsible for advancing sustainable development. External networking also takes place, among other things, through research projects, such as the "Climate Neutral Destinations" project sponsored by Innotour. It aims to calculate, model, and reduce the climate tourism footprint of the three destinations Arosa, Poschiavo and Davos. On the one hand, the highest certification standards are met, and on the other hand, a contribution is made to the climate goals of the Paris Agreement and the implementation of the "Green Deal" of the Grisons.

But it's not just at the research level that things are happening. Sustainable development is also a central cross-cutting theme in the curriculum. For example, multimedia production students developed their own event concept on the topic of food waste. The result was "Restless - the cooking show without leftovers," in which three teams of two competed against each other and were given the task of conjuring up a dish of regional and vegan products from a randomly thrown together food shopping cart. For not used food it gave in each case a point deduction by the jury. The goal was to show the audience how, with a little creativity and will, any food lying around in the fridge at home can be integrated into a dish and how everyone can contribute to reducing food waste. "At the UAS Grisons, projects around sustainability are very much encouraged. This gives students and employees with their own initiative the opportunity to plan and successfully implement their own - rather than predefined - sustainable projects," concludes Ulrike Zika.

Further details

• Sustainabilty at UAS Grisons
• Sustainabilty report of UAS Grisons