Sustainable Campus Management at Freie Universität Berlin—Governance and Participation Matter

Abstract

Sustainable campus management at Freie Universitat Berlin has long placed special emphasis on climate protection and the goal of assuring sustainable development within the scope of its own institutional responsibilities. The university illustrated this by founding its own administrative unit for energy and environment management in 2001. Since then, the university has gradually implemented various initiatives and instruments such as energy efficiency programs focusing on the modernization of buildings and technical facilities, a bonus scheme for energy savings, a green IT program and several team building processes—all of which pursue the objective of realizing a systematic combination of technical, organizational and behavior-focused measures. Overall, these measures have led to a substantial drop in energy consumption of nearly 25 %, or 40 million kilowatt hours, with generally stable space utilization since the program’s inception in 2001. This reduction comes in connection with annual budget savings of €3.5 million and a significant decrease in CO2 emissions. The contribution highlights ‘lessons learned’ from the perspective of the sustainability manager, who has been in charge for the whole process from the very beginning in 2001. It focuses on the need for a holistic view of technology, organizational development, social learning processes and communication, as well as on the particular significance of governance aspects and stakeholder participation in terms of a whole-institution approach.