Sustainability Awards 2016

Environmental and social sustainability is a key principle of MODUL University Vienna, acknowledging and embracing the urgent need for development strategies that meet the needs of the present and improve the welfare of future generations. In order to promote the need to be sustainable, MODUL University Vienna awards the ‘Scholarship of Hope’ and ‘Staff Sustainability Award’ to students and staff members respectively. These awards are given to the best project proposal which could be implemented at MU in order to advance the ongoing goal of becoming a more sustainable university.

The winners this year were MBA student Petra Essing and Researcher Stefan Gindl from the Department of New Media Technology.

Petra’s idea focused on the idea of taking small steps to prompt bigger changes, or Big Impact Small Effect (BISE)! To actually put this into action, Petra suggested assessing the sustainability content of existing courses by reviewing syllabi, updating student feedback forms with some new questions, and administering sustainability literacy tests to both students and lecturers. She also suggested a dedicated sustainability course. The aim of this is to keep sustainability relevant and at the forefront of the mind.

The Staff Sustainability Award was won by Stefan Gindl for his recycling initiative. He suggested collecting the lids and tops of plastic items to make the recycling process more efficient. A number of lid collection buckets will be placed around MODUL University Vienna this week, and he encourages people to bring their plastic tops to put in the buckets. Not only just environmentally sustainable, all the lids collected are given to a children’s charity adding a social sustainability dynamic.

Congratulations to both Petra and Stefan and we look forward to the next set of sustainable proposals!