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Sustainable education aims to empower people to think and act in a future-oriented way and, at the same time, understand the effects which their own actions have on the world. Prof. Christian Fischer is a member of the "Sustainable Development of Potential" research team at the University of Münster, and in this guest commentary he describes what sustainability means in education.

Landscape ecology students Julia Binder and Thomas Middelanis have initiated a project entitled "Meeting points for agriculture, civil society and science: monitoring modern agroforestry ecosystems", and their aim is to design agricultural areas in a more sustainable way through "agroforestry".

With the end of the "petroleum age" – i.e. replacing oil with sustainable bio-resources – renewable raw materials are becoming increasingly important for commerce and industry. In this interview, Prof. Jochen Schmid talks about the potential in "biologizing" processes and products.

What impact is the corona pandemic having on the climate? This is a question which landscape ecology students looked at in a project run by the Climatology working group. During the restrictions on contacts last year, they used a cargo bike fitted with various measuring devices to record the particle emissions in Münster.

In 2019, 83.7 million lithium-ion batteries were sold in Germany. The carbon footprint they create is currently significant, especially in their production. In the project entitled "Green Electrochemical Energy Storage", the MEET Battery Research Centre at the University of Münster is engaged on a research programme to develop a more sustainable lifecycle for batteries.

Plastic in the environment and in the oceans is a well-known problem – and now a lot of inland waters are also affected. Dams and reservoirs have hardly been looked at, though. And this is precisely where the “MikroPlaTaS” project kicks in: researchers from the University of Münster are examining microplastic in wastewater treatment farms in Münster.

How do we want to live? What makes for a good life? What has a sustainable future as far as environment, society and democracy are concerned? These questions are something that the blog being written by the ZIN (Centre for Interdisciplinary Sustainability Research) at Münster University is looking at. The blog not only provides insights into current research, but also considers social issues.

In the "Form your Future" project, research staff from Münster University’s Experimental lab "MExLab ExperiMINTe" train young people as "ambassadors for sustainability". The aim is to develop and produce research issues and campaigns which deal with the topics of atmosphere and climate change, water and soil, and waste and recycling.

Knowledge transfer for more sustainability: scientists at the University of Münster are active in the "Scientists for Future" initiative. With its interdisciplinary projects, the group aims to attract more attention to the climate crisis. In this guest commentary, Prof. Clemens Leonhard describes what the group does.

The project entitled “The Political Plant”, in which Münster University’s Botanical Garden is involved as a project partner, aims to promote biodiversity and sustainability by means of educational and transfer activities. The workshop programme “Very attractive – what fibre plants can do!” is designed to enable children of primary school age to get to know various fibre plants.

March 5 is the annual Energy Efficiency Day – reason enough for Kathrin Nolte to talk to Prof. Andreas Löschel about meaningful instruments relating to energy and climate issues. Löschel holds the Chair of Microeconomics with a Focus on Energy and Resource Economics at the University of Münster.

Münster University has around 45,000 students and 7,250 staff, making it one of the largest German universities. Münster is committed to the idea of sustainability – in many areas. These include for example the administration, building work and information technology. These guest commentaries give an insight into everyday work at the University.