What can sustainability look like in practice at the Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences - in everyday office life, on campus or in our interactions with one another? Numerous university employees explored this question as part of the Sustainability 2025 ideas competition. Around 30 creative and practical contributions were submitted. Six particularly convincing project ideas have now been honoured at an award ceremony in the Future Work Lab - along with a start-up budget for implementation and prizes totalling over 25,000 euros.
The aim of the internal university competition, which was launched six months ago, was to promote concrete ideas for the sustainable further development of everyday university life. An independent jury assessed the submitted proposals according to their benefits for the university, their realistic feasibility in everyday working life and the long-term commitment of those involved.
At the award ceremony, Chancellor Prof Dr Fabienne Köller-Marek and Annika Joosten from the Sustainability and Climate Protection Office presented the certificates to the winners.
1st place: Sustainability onboarding and "The good intentions"
Sarah Neumann, Alexandra Plewina, Melanie Jakubi and Maike Vierkötter from the Department of Textile and Clothing Technology secured first place with two concepts: a sustainable onboarding process for new employees and the idea of "The Good Intentions", in which employees and students are motivated to take part in small sustainability challenges in the future. They received a start-up budget of 3000 euros for the implementation. In addition, the winners each received a prize of 1,750 euros.
2nd place: Focus on resource management
Second place was shared by three teams from the faculties of Engineering, Chemistry and Textile and Clothing Technology. They each developed concepts for a centralised resource management system designed to promote the resource-conserving use of work materials, machines and tools. The following were honoured: Lars Osterburg and Florian Büchner (Department of Engineering and Computer Science), Dr Amelie Achten and Dr Sabrina Keil (Department of Chemistry), Irina Singer (Department of Textile and Clothing Technology) and Hans-Reinhold Mayer and Emma Shafir (Department of Engineering and Computer Science).
All three teams received a combined start-up budget of 3,000 euros for their ideas. Each team member also received a prize of 1,500 euros.
3rd place: Collection station for donations in kind
Michael Freudenberg from the Department of Financial Resources received 1,250 euros for his idea of a "pick-up station for donations in kind" from the university's collection, securing him third place.
All of the winning project ideas will now be actively pursued and implemented with the support of the university management and the Sustainability and Climate Protection team.
"We are delighted that the competition was so successful and was so well received by the employees. In addition to the continuous implementation of ecological measures on buildings and outdoor facilities, we were also able to promote the aspect of social sustainability with this competition by actively involving our colleagues in the sustainable development of our university and thus also taking their personal needs and perspectives into account," says HSNR Chancellor Prof Dr Fabienne Köller-Marek.
Following the award ceremony, there was a lively exchange between the award-winning teams and with President Dr Thomas Grünewald, the jury and other members of the university management.
