TU Bergakademie Freiberg is taking further steps toward becoming a sustainable university: in addition to a sustainability strategy, a climate protection concept will also be developed this year. The aim is to anchor sustainability more firmly than before, particularly in the areas of governance, campus operations and other university activities.
“As a resource university, climate protection is naturally a key issue in our research, teaching and knowledge transfer. But we want to go even further and thanks to the measures in the future climate protection concept, reduce greenhouse gas emissions at TUBAF by 10 percent,” says Professor Andreas Horsch, Vice Rector for Sustainability and Communication at TU Bergakademie Freiberg. The climate protection concept is currently being developed as part of the “Future Forum for Climate-Friendly Universities (ZKH)” project.
Over the past few months, the project task force has prepared a status quo report and a potential and strengths/weaknesses analysis for the areas of teaching, research, transfer, governance, campus and operations. In addition, all status groups at the university were called upon to participate, submit proposals for measures for a more sustainable university and thus contribute to the process. A specially created digital idea box ultimately contained nearly 150 submissions, some of which consisted of individual keywords, while others included longer texts and many suggestions.
Based on the status quo report, the potential analysis and with the help of numerous suggestions from university members, the project task force developed a catalog of possible measures, which also provided initial insights:
- TU Bergakademie Freiberg lives up to its designation as a “resource university” by already comprehensively incorporating sustainability into its teaching and research.
- TU Bergakademie Freiberg effectively transfers research findings to society, business, science and politics.
- Sustainability aspects must be given greater consideration in the context of governance and, in particular, in campus and other university operations.
The next step was to identify which measures could play a key role based on their effectiveness and feasibility. To this end, a workshop was held in Freiberg on June 18, 2025, moderated by two project coordinators. The measures identified will be elaborated in individual profiles and incorporated into the future climate protection concept.
Information about the status of the project and opportunities for participation
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High participation in the measures workshop in June
The high participation of university members from all status groups in the measures workshop as part of the “Future Forum for Climate-Friendly Universities” project on June 18, 2025, at the SIZ in Freiberg was highly praised by the responsible ZKH project coordinator from the Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development: More than 30 students, lecturers, doctoral candidates and administrative staff helped decide on the most promising measures. The basis for this was a catalog of more than 40 measures, which was based on the status quo report, the potential analysis and numerous suggestions from university members. From this, the workshop participants identified key measures that will be further developed in the next step into concrete action profiles and roadmaps for greater sustainability and will ultimately be incorporated into the future climate protection concept.
