Time for regional action for people and planet

This winter semester, the Environmental, Process and Energy Engineering program launched the implementation of the UN's SDG's (Sustainable Development Goals) in the courses of the program.

In September 2015, the 193 UN member states approved the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG's for short) and the 2030 Agenda. This contains 17 Sustainable Development Goals that unite the three pillars of sustainability: ecological, economic and social. These goals apply to all countries in the world, they are indivisible and interdependent. They are preceded by five core messages as principles guiding action: People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace and Partnership. As an educational institution, the Entrepreneurial School® has an important role to play in implementing and, above all, raising awareness of the 2030 Agenda.

Anchoring the SDG's in the courses allows students to open up a broad view of higher-level goals while learning technical details. This allows them to see how individual course content aims to implement the 2030 Agenda and what actions they can take in their professional lives to advance the achievement of the goals. The SDGs will be linked to existing content and in addition, facts will be presented that allow the SDGs to be classified and relevant. This is, for example, content on climate change, social inequalities or other current, relevant topics of the five core messages.

The starting signal for the implementation in the study program is an entrance lecture at the beginning of the study program, held by the research assistant and former UVET student Nina Schaaf. After this introduction, the individual objectives are then referred to in the respective courses and thematic references are established. In order to establish a practical reference, reference will be made to current topics of research at the MCI, where MCI staff have been working on achieving the SDGs for a long time. Especially for SDG's number 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure), number 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), number 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) and number 13 (Climate Action), innovative approaches to solutions are taught in the UVET program.