Sustainability Concept
(Whole-Institution Approach)
of the Catholic University
of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt (Germany)
Ingrid Hemmer and Anne-Kathrin Lindau
1 Introduction
German universities today face major and diverse challenges in meeting the current
and future expectations of society (Barlett and Chase 2013). On the one hand, students
have to fulfill the requirements of current labor markets, on the other hand, the
university itself as an educational institution and company should act as a role model.
The concept of sustainable development and education for sustainable development currently represents an approach that universities around the world and especially in Germany are increasingly adopting. In Germany, some universities have
already made progress in the process of adopting the whole-institution approach and
can serve as a model for other universities on their way to becoming more sustainable.
The aim of this article is to present the KU as a positive example of a German
university that has been on the path towards becoming a more sustainable university
for ten years and thus, according to Leal Filho (2009), belongs to the group of
universities that have made a long-term commitment to sustainability. It should be
emphasized that, in addition to research and teaching, the focus is on four further
fields of action in connection with sustainability (governance, student initiatives and
commitment, campus management and operations, and transfer) for implementation
of a whole-institution approach. This stringent approach is still too rare in Germany
in this scope and complexity (HRK 2017).
I. Hemmer (B) · A.-K. Lindau
Department of Geography, Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Ostenstraße 18, 85072
Eichstätt, Germany
e-mail: ingrid.hemmer@ku.de
A.-K. Lindau
e-mail: anne.lindau@ku.de
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
W. Leal Filho et al. (eds.), Universities, Sustainability and Society: Supporting
the Implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, World Sustainability Series,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63399-8_20
305
(Whole-Institution Approach)
of the Catholic University
of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt (Germany)
Ingrid Hemmer and Anne-Kathrin Lindau
1 Introduction
German universities today face major and diverse challenges in meeting the current
and future expectations of society (Barlett and Chase 2013). On the one hand, students
have to fulfill the requirements of current labor markets, on the other hand, the
university itself as an educational institution and company should act as a role model.
The concept of sustainable development and education for sustainable development currently represents an approach that universities around the world and especially in Germany are increasingly adopting. In Germany, some universities have
already made progress in the process of adopting the whole-institution approach and
can serve as a model for other universities on their way to becoming more sustainable.
The aim of this article is to present the KU as a positive example of a German
university that has been on the path towards becoming a more sustainable university
for ten years and thus, according to Leal Filho (2009), belongs to the group of
universities that have made a long-term commitment to sustainability. It should be
emphasized that, in addition to research and teaching, the focus is on four further
fields of action in connection with sustainability (governance, student initiatives and
commitment, campus management and operations, and transfer) for implementation
of a whole-institution approach. This stringent approach is still too rare in Germany
in this scope and complexity (HRK 2017).
I. Hemmer (B) · A.-K. Lindau
Department of Geography, Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Ostenstraße 18, 85072
Eichstätt, Germany
e-mail: ingrid.hemmer@ku.de
A.-K. Lindau
e-mail: anne.lindau@ku.de
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
W. Leal Filho et al. (eds.), Universities, Sustainability and Society: Supporting
the Implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, World Sustainability Series,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63399-8_20
305