Why "bumblebee fish"?
The start has been made, and the first Hummelfisch newsletter from the CSR Office is here! But why "bumblebee fish"? It is as absurd as it is ingenious that the bumblebee should belong to the fish genus. Due to climate change and conventional agriculture with its extensive use of pesticides, the bumblebee is considered endangered. With the aim of placing the bumblebee under special animal protection, the responsible authority in California therefore declared the bumblebee to be a "fish" without further ado, as "birds, mammals, fish, amphibians, reptiles and plants" are considered worthy of protection under the Californian Endangered Species Act. Sometimes you just have to be a little creative to stand up for nature and climate protection.
With our bumblebee fish newsletter, we as the CSR Office would like to encourage you to think creatively and take on new perspectives and possibly turn the bumblebee into a fish for the sustainable development of Fachhochschule Dortmund. Your ideas and suggestions are always welcome. We hope you enjoy reading our first Hummelfisch newsletter.
The CSR Office and its new employees
The CSR Office was launched on 01.06.2021 with three employees:
- Sebastian Kreimer as Head of the CSR Office,
- Alina Elfert, who takes care of all areas relating to communication and
- Gabriele Kirschbaum, who is responsible for the sustainability report.
This core team has now grown and we are pleased to introduce the new employees with their areas of responsibility and contact details.
Climate protection management
Fachhochschule Dortmund wants to achieve climate neutrality by 2030 and thus meet the targets set jointly with the NRW state administration. With the help of an integrated climate protection concept, a holistic and long-term sustainability strategy for Fachhochschule Dortmund is to be developed in the coming years. Dorothee Albrecht has been responsible for this in the CSR Office team since March 2023. She coordinates the entire process, organizes the "Social and Ecological Sustainability" working group and the "Energy" working group, among others, and will draw up the Fachhochschule Dortmund's climate protection concept.
This is a complex task for which the participation and integration of all university members in the process is important. As a first step, Dorothee Albrecht has taken over the moderation of the social and ecological sustainability working group (AK söN). All members of the university are invited to participate. It meets every first Tuesday of the month at 11:30 am. Access to the Webex meeting is possible at any time via the Webex link on the CSR page.
The aim of climate protection management is to determine the energy-saving potential in all areas of the university and to develop targets and measures from this. A start has already been made: the photovoltaics working group, which emerged from the energy working group, has written an implementation concept for the Emil-Figge-Straße and Max-Ophüls-Platz sites in order to install photovoltaics on the roofs of Fachhochschule Dortmund as quickly as possible. Further planning is now being coordinated in the specially established "round table".
The climate protection management is located in the CSR Office and is funded by the Federal Ministry for Business Studies and Climate Protection as part of the National Climate Protection Initiative. It will run from November 2022 to February 2025.
Mobility management
Since 1 February 2023, Moritz Niermann and Anna-Maria Reinartz have been available as contact persons for mobility management for all questions relating to sustainable mobility at Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts. They also organize events and participation formats on the topic of sustainable mobility, such as the Mobility Working Group, and coordinate measures to improve this. On 25.04.2023, for example, a free bicycle check-up with helmet advice was held at the "kostBar" canteen on campus together with the German Cyclists' Federation (ADFC) and the university's own start-up service SQuArE, which operates a bicycle workshop at Max-Ophüls-Platz. A second bike check-up was held on 02.05.2023 in the inner courtyard at the Sonnenstraße campus. Both events were well attended and a regular free bike check-up is planned every spring.
On 27.06.2023, a lunchtime bike tour was offered, during which members of Fachhochschule Dortmund were able to familiarize themselves with the use of company bikes or NextBikes rental bikes and get to know the route between the various university locations. This is because a large part of the route can be covered on comfortable cycle paths - if you know them. Here, too, a regular program is planned, especially for new university members.
Mobility management is a 12-month project that was derived from the University Development Plan (HEP). The project is located in the Faculty of Applied Social Studies under the direction of Prof. Dr. Marcel Hunecke and is carried out in cooperation with the CSR Office.
Sustainability Report of Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts
We are pleased to inform you that the first sustainability report of Fachhochschule Dortmund has been published. Instead of a printed version, we have decided to publish a PDF on our website.
This first report contains hand-picked research, so if you do not find yourself here, please do not take it personally. To ensure that all sustainability content can be included in the following reports, we ask that everyone actively sends us information on their activities, measures and projects. This is the only way to really capture everything, especially for the sustainability activities in the faculties. The new reporting period is from October 2022 to September 2023.
Enjoy reading it!