Between Lake Zurich and Europe: the ZHAW’s sustainability networks

The ZKSD brings together sustainability research, teaching and knowledge transfer from Zurich’s four universities – the ZHAW, UZH, PHZH and ZHdK – under one roof at its location on Hardstrasse. The ZHAW is represented on the Steering Committee by its President Regula Jöhl and on the Board of Directors by Francesco Bortoluzzi. ZHAW projects (e.g. those funded by the SIP Living Lab Fund) benefit from a permanent link to the centre, increased visibility and around 40 joint events per year. As a meeting place, the centre facilitates cross-university and interdisciplinary partnerships, while the universities’ sustainability offices benefit from the exchange of best practices and a shared point of contact with the Canton.

A new sustainability centre is being developed on the Au peninsula on Lake Zurich and is scheduled to be open by 2028. Led by the Zurich University of Teacher Education (PH Zürich) in collaboration with the WWF, it will house a nature centre focusing on water on the ground floor, with a forum for dialogue on education and sustainability being situated on the first floor. The ZHAW will contribute its expertise in linguistics and communication to support public discourse on sustainability, as well as life sciences expertise for water-related citizen science projects that build directly on the centre’s lakeside location. In return, the ZHAW will gain access to a venue with a broad social reach beyond its own campus – the specific details of the ZHAW’s contribution are currently being defined.

Since 2020, the swissuniversities Sustainability Network has brought together all types of higher education institutions in Switzerland. The ZHAW is involved in all four working groups covering business travel, climate neutrality, procurement and green labs. It is represented by Francesco Bortoluzzi, Head of ZHAW Sustainability Programmes, who also serves as Secretary to the Network Board, and by Aaron Ehrat, ZHAW Operational Sustainability Manager. The exchange of best practices has informed, among other things, the ZHAW’s strategy for reducing air travel emissions. At the same time, the ZHAW benefits from the experience of other universities.

With around 2,000 participants, including more than 1,000 decision-makers from the worlds of business and politics, the SGES is Switzerland’s largest conference dedicated to business and sustainability. The ZHAW is an academic partner, sits on the Programme Advisory Board and has provided conference facilities since 2025. A number of ZHAW lecturers and researchers contribute to the SGES’s main programme and innovation forums. The SDG Thesis Award is presented as part of the main programme, accompanied by an address by ZHAW President Regula Jöhl.

Since 2023, the ZHAW has been a member of the EELISA alliance, a network of ten universities from eight countries dedicated to interdisciplinary European engineering education. The ZHAW co-leads the thematic areas of Employability & Partnerships and Innovation & Entrepreneurship, thereby helping to shape the alliance’s strategic direction. In return, students and staff gain access to exchange programmes, joint degree programmes and European funding opportunities: in 2025, ZHAW students from the School of Life Sciences and Facility Management won three awards at the competition in Budapest, while the first EELISA Credentials were awarded to participants in the Entrepreneurship Summer School. The ZHAW is also helping to shape the framework for the alliance’s Sustainability Impact Assessment. The partnership is coordinated through the EELISA Local Office at the ZHAW under the leadership of Friederike Bacciarini.