ETH ZURICH - ETH - Finanzen und Controlling

Foreword from the President
Sustainability: action is what counts
Dear reader,
I am delighted to present to you our new annual report. ETH
Zurich has had another eventful year – with countless high points
in research and teaching, growing student figures and a record
number of newly established ETH spin-off companies. Important
progress was also made with the “Excellence Scholarship &
Opportunity” grants programme and several new partnerships
with industry.
I would especially like to highlight one issue that is close to my
heart: sustainability. It’s easy to talk about this trendy concept
aimed at long-lasting development, but achieving it involves
a great deal of expense and effort. At ETH, sustainability must be
at the core of all three of our main areas of business – in education,
research, and putting the results into practice. Physically, sustainability
means using closed materials cycles as far as possible, or
else minimising the flow of materials. We need to do that if the
soon to be ten billion people on our planet can all hope to enjoy
a decent life in harmony with the environment.
Making this vision of “sustainability” a reality requires not only the
right attitude but also efficient technologies generating less waste.
Well thought-through solutions are complex and entail far more
than simple energy saving. I am very proud that our Science City
campus is a model of a sustainable development. This is being
achieved by consistent use of the technologies that are available
today. ETH is also demonstrating its commitment to sustainability
with a recently created coordination office designed to raise
awareness of this topic among the university’s departments and
competence centres.
Ralph Eichler, President of ETH Zurich
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