Sustainability Concept (Whole-Institution Approach) …
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3 The Whole-Institution Sustainability Approach
at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt
(Germany)
3.1 The Idea of a Sustainability Concept and Its Ten-Year
History
The Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt (KU) was founded in 1980. It is
located in Bavaria approx. 120 km north of Munich. Currently, just under 5000
students are enrolled at the eight faculties of the KU. While the university places
its focus on social sciences and the humanities, it also represents a natural sciences
component with its Faculty of Mathematics and Geography. Already after the conference in Rio in 1992, KU students started initial efforts for making the university more
sustainable (Fig. 2).
In 2010, the KU University Management at the time decided to introduce an overall
sustainability concept by way of a whole-institution approach as a reaction to a joint
declaration made by the German UNESCO Commission and the German Rectors’
Conference (HRK and DUK 2010) and a conference of the national working group
Fig. 2 The Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt on its way to a more sustainable university
(Hemmer and Limmer) (Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt 2019, p. 10, illustration: C.
Pietsch)