Dossier Sustainability

As an international networking organisation connecting outstanding researchers and leaders in all science-related fields around the world, the Humboldt Foundation feels under a special obligation to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). We also want to make a significant contribution to sustainable development.

Cover of the Humboldt Foundation’s Sustainability Agenda: "Sustainably crafting excellent connections"

Driving sustainability

The climate crisis is one of the global challenges of our times. It is not restricted to our planet’s ecological resources but has far-reaching social and economic implications, too. In its Agenda 2030, the United Nations defined a framework for action which is designed to help anchor sustainability as a key objective in our global communities.

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Sustainability agenda

Sustainably crafting excellent connections: The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation is developing measures for a sustainable global network on the basis of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Sustainability agenda (PDF, 167 KB)
Shaping networks for the future (Press release, September 2021)

From affordable, clean energy to high-quality education – science organisations around the world provide fertile ground for innovations and concrete solutions to achieving the 17 sustainability goals (SDG). They themselves also have a responsibility to implement sustainability goals. At the latest by 2035, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation wants to be climate neutral. To this end, the Foundation has developed a sustainability agenda that covers both concrete research promotion and inhouse measures. In addition to supporting sustainable mobility for its staff, these measures also include the resource-friendly construction of the Foundation’s new head office in Bonn.

Three fields of action on the sustainability agenda

  • driving sustainability with the scientific expertise of the Humboldt Network
  • practising sustainability and conserving resources in the Humboldt Network
  • reinforcing sustainability at the Foundation, e.g. through the ISO 14001 environmental management system and the annual publication of a climate report

Cooperation with other science organisations

In its efforts to conserve resources and drive climate neutrality the Humboldt Foundation collaborates closely with other national and international partners.

Research to combat climate change

Through its International Climate Protection Fellowships, the Foundation sponsors proposals from non-European developing countries and emerging economies which address the preservation of ecosystems and biodiversity, sustainable use of the seas and oceans as well as sustainable consumption and urban development.

 

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Contact

Press, Communications and Marketing
Tel.: +49 228 833-144
Fax: +49 228 833-441
presse[at]avh.de

Network within the network

The Foundation wants to pool the expertise of sustainability researchers in the Humboldt Network and focus it in a “network within the network.” It is achieving this by bringing researchers together via various networking and dialogue formats such as the Communication Lab for Exchange between Research and Media, the Humboldt Residency Programme and the Frontiers of Research Symposia. Sharing ideas across cultural boundaries facilitates the necessary international and interdisciplinary work on exploring climate change and helps to channel research results into the dialogue in society.

Humboldt Residency Programme 2023: "Our Precious Resources: Pathways to a Secure and Sustainable Future"

Background

Ein Bild mit gelbem Hintergrund und den Fotos der beiden Teilnehmenden. Dazu der Text The Future of Biodiversity. Why we need better data and communication. Bench Talk with Sahana Ghosh and Brian McGill
News

Podcast Bench Talks

Macroecologist Brian McGill and science journalist Sahana Ghosh talk about the future of biodiversity and better communication.

Eine Frau (Sai Kala Kondepudi) mit langen schwarzen Haaren und einem blauen Pullover lächelt in die Kamera. Sie steht vor einem modernen Gebäude mit einer Glasfassade, in der sich ein Teil der Umgebung spiegelt.
News

Research for climate protection: green construction

The Indian civil engineer, Sai Kala Kondepudi, develops climate-friendly building materials made of natural resources that are supposed to replace conventional cement at some stage.

Foto von Adenike Oladosu vor einer Gruppe von Frauen in Nigeria
Humboldtians in private

"Climate change will affect us all"

The agricultural economist and climate activist Adenike Oladosu is founder of Fridays for Future Nigeria. For a project undertaken by her organisation iLeadclimate Action Initiative, she travels round the country telling women about climate change.

Porträtfoto Till Bärnighausen
Focus

Well-meant is not necessarily well done

The epidemiologist and Humboldt Professor Till Bärnighausen has specialised in what is known as intervention research and investigates strategies to help counter climate change and infectious diseases.

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Focus

“Africa’s young people are our greatest asset”

How can Africa feed its growing population when climate change and environmental degradation are making agriculture ever more difficult? Biomathematician Romain Glèlè Kakaï, head of the Humboldt Research Hub "Socio-ecological modelling of COVID-19 dynamics in Africa” in Benin, is addressing this question.

Porträtfoto Faisal Abbas
Focus

Being better prepared for the next disaster

Floods and drought threaten the lives of millions of people in Pakistan. Faisal Abbas advises the government of his country on how better preparedness as well as social change could alleviate the situation.

Porträt von Yander Luis Diez García
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Cuban scientist: In the ocean of diversity

In the ocean and under the microscope, the Cuban biologist and Humboldtian, Yander Luis Diez García discovers diversity that protects the climate. Why new species of flatworm are good for the environment and what research opportunities are open to Diez García in Germany.

Georg Forster-Forschungsstipendiatin Dr. Gloria Ugwuja mit Gastgeber Professor Andreas Taubert
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Water treatment: a global challenge – many local solutions

Sustainable development thanks to research collaboration: Georg Forster Research Fellow Gloria Ugwuja is working together with Potsdam chemist Andreas Taubert, who has been cooperating with colleagues from Nigeria on water treatment methods for years.

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Humboldt Residency Programme

Our precious resources

The second cohort of the Humboldt Residency Programme addressed the question of how a different approach to our use of natural resources could pave the way for a more sustainable – and thus more secure – future. With emphasis on the interface between global ecological pressure, political volatility and societal conditions, actors from the science community, the arts, the media and civil society discussed potential solutions to the most pressing issues facing humankind today.