Page 3 - Sustainability Strategiy 2023 - 2030 | TU Dresden

Introduction

Dear members of our university community, dear readers,

Universities are important incubators for innovation and progress. Numerous research findings
shape the way we live together in society, such as in the development of new technologies. Ongoing
insights into medicine and nutritional science are strengthening the foundations for a safer and he-
althier life; transportation, infrastructure, and communication technologies have long been bringing
the world ever closer together.

But at the same time, all our actions have consequences. The pursuit of innovation and progress also
means using available resources responsibly, facing up to global, human-induced challenges, and
developing alternative transformation approaches. The issue is becoming ever more urgent, and at
the same time it is not new. The Club of Rome report The Limits to Growth – published more than 50
years ago – and the Brundtland Report formed the basis for the first UN Conference on Environment
and Development in 1992,which was followed by other such conferences. In 2015, the UN finally de-
veloped the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda – a common orientation framework
for globally sustainable development.

TUD Dresden University of Technology recognized the importance of these issues early on and set
out on a path toward sustainable development. Important steps in this process include the founding
of the student-led TU environmental initiative, the creation of the Environment Commission, the es-
tablishment of an environmental management system, the ingraining of sustainability as a strategic
management task at Executive Board level, and the setting-up of a Green Office. All these milestones
have given further impetus to the topic of sustainability at TUD.

Sustainable development is also becoming increasingly relevant as a research topic at TU Dresden,
as this brochure will illustrate using selected examples. Projects and alliances focus on issues of
economically successful as well as ecologically and socially compatible long-term development, such
as by researching into climate-friendly forms of energy supply or models for future mobility from the
point of view of transport ecology. The same can be said for sustainability in teaching and teacher
training.

3