Prizes awarded in the "Ecological Sustainability" ideas competition

During the summer semester, all university staff and students were invited to submit their ideas on how the university can improve its balance sheet as part of the university's sustainability campaign. The proposals, especially the winning ideas, are now being evaluated for feasibility.

In the "User Behavior" category, students David Thierer, Frederik Beer and Marcel Werner were awarded first prize (500 euros): Stickers on paper towel dispensers and on printers are intended to encourage economical use of paper as a resource. The benefits for the environment are great: Currently, around 15 million sheets of printer paper and 24 million sheets of towel paper are used at the university per year. 2nd and 3rd place went to staff member Andreas Göttig for his idea of equipping the heaters in (office) rooms with modern electronic heating controllers, and again to students David Thierer, Frederik Beer and Marcel Werner for their idea of restructuring the refectory so that the vegetarian/vegan dish is served directly at the first counter.

The winners in the category "Technical and Organizational Improvements" are staff member Madlen Lorenz and staff member Florian Emanuel for their proposal to install motion detectors in hallways and infrared detectors in lecture rooms, as well as staff member Ilona Knie for the "Lights Off" idea. Here, manual light switches are to be installed so that lights can only be turned on when needed. The switches can be equipped with overrun relays so that the lighting switches off again automatically after a short time. Both ideas share 1st prize of 250 euros each. Second place goes to Prof. Dr. Oliver Hensel for the "E-Cargo" idea. In the future, internal transports could be carried out using the company's own e-cargo bicycles, which are charged at solar charging stations. Third place was awarded to employee Inken Poßner for her suggestion to set up a permanent reporting office to which people can turn with suggestions on energy and resource conservation.

A total of 73 suggestions for improving sustainability at the University of Kassel were submitted. 37 contributions came from the student body, 35 contributions from employees and one proposal was submitted by a mixed group. The prize money, donated by the cdw Foundation, totaling 1,500 euros, was awarded yesterday (June 29) during the Campus Festival at the Campus Center.