IDEA League Summer School 2018 in Filzbach, Switzerland
The 5-day IDEA League summer school, organised by ISTP, was a success with the participation of 56 students from eleven leading universities, debating how they, the next generation of thinkers and leaders can use their disciplinary knowledge to reduce society’s environmental footprint.
56 students from eleven universities (TU Delft, Chalmers University of Technology, Politecnico di Milano, RWTH Aachen, University of Oxford, University of Guelph Ontario Canada, The Graduate Institute, Geneva, Cornell University, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, KAIST College of Business and the Tokyo Institute of Technology) participated in the IDEA League Summer School “Assessing and Reducing Society’s Environmental Footprint” from the 2th-7th September 2018 in Filzbach, Switzerland, debating how they as the next generation of thinkers and leaders can use their disciplinary knowledge to reduce society’s environmental footprint.
Our 5-day program
On the first day of the summer school students enjoyed a lecture by Dr. Mathis Wackernagel, former CEO of Global Footprint Network, updating them on the concept of environmental footprint and giving insights on how to measure it. This lecture was complemented by the presentation of Dr. Sybil Anwander Head of the Economics and Innovation Division, Swiss Federal Office for the Environment, laying out current green economic policies in Switzerland. Also, on the first day students were assigned to a working group and research ideas were chosen to be developed over the week, with input provided by the lectures. In total there were ten groups, each of them with five students. Every day, the last two hours of the program were assigned to work in the groups on the research ideas.
During the second day more technical issues were discussed with our ETH's senior scientist Dr. Stephan Pfister and Prof. Dr. Bernhard Wehrli, who presented the nuts and bolts of life cycle assessment, and the environmental impacts of mining activities. Students also enjoyed a lecture by Prof. Dr. Thomas Bernauer (ETH), drawing out the linkages between international trade and the environment.
The third day started with insights from Prof. Dr. David Bresch (ETH) on how firms and industries consider and manage environmental risk. His lecture was followed by insights from Prof. Joachim Scholderer (Norwegian University of Life Sciences) on corporate environmental strategies. They finished the day with a lecture by Dr. Bjarne Steffen (ETH) and Asbhishek Malhotra (ETH), introducing the energy sector and its links to the environment.
On the fourth day, we turned our attention to individual behavior, and the environmental attitudes of citizens and consumers. Prof. Dr. Linda Steg (University of Groningen) complemented Prof. Dr. Thomas Bernauer’s lecture by showing different examples of experiments to encourage pro-environmental attitude in consumer choice.
The last day we were delighted by the student’s presentations on their innovative projects, worked out by interdisciplinary teams integrating their different backgrounds into worthy new ideas.
We thank all participants for the vivid discussions and we are very much looking forward to our next IDEA League summer school.
Find out more about the IDEA League Summer School 2018 in Filzbach.