"Sustainability is just more than biodegradable packaging!" At least, that's how Silke Rühmland - the coordinator of the sustainability office at the University of Magdeburg - sees it. The university already has a sustainability strategy - but is it just a lip statement or is it also consistently implemented? Dirk Alstein spoke with Silke Rühmland about the university as a sustainable role model - where there is still room for improvement, why a bicycle parking garage is useless, and how the campus should become more climate-neutral and livable through specific actions. And about that: How the pallet ship that students built themselves in a workshop actually disappeared.

Today's guest

Silke Rühmland took over as head of the sustainability office at the University of Magdeburg in February 2020, just before the start of the Corona pandemic. However, she has already dealt with the topic in her doctorate in the field of environmental psychology at the University of Saarland, where she researched the acceptance of renewable energies. Now she wants to help make the University of Magdeburg more sustainable - and not just through decomposable packaging. Anyone who wants to support Silke Rühmland in this process is welcome to do so. Detailed information and contact details can be found on the website of the sustainability office.

*the audio file is only available in German

Silke Rühmland talks with Dirk Alstein about how sustainable the OVGU is. (Photo: Jana Dünnhaupt / Uni Magdeburg)

The Podcast to Read

Intro voice: “Listen in on the University” - The podcast on the world of work at the OVGU.

Dirk Alstein: Yes, and today's April issue is supposed to be about sustainability. Yes, yes, this word that seems to haunt us all the time. What exactly does that mean, sustainability? And, what does that have to do with the university? Is it about more than just printer paper and energy-saving lightbulbs? And if so, how far-reaching are these processes and how exhausting it will be for us, but perhaps even better: What opportunities and perspectives do they open up? All of this needs to be discussed today. There are also questions from the university - yay - and many other great and beautiful things. It's great that you're here. My name is Dirk Alstein, I work in the field of media, communication and marketing here at the university and my current guest is fortunately and appropriately the coordinator of the sustainability office: It's nice to have you here. Welcome Ms. Rühmland.

Dr. Silke Rühmland: Hello.

Dirk Alstein: Ms. Rühmland, to start right away: The word sustainability has been suggested several times in recent years to make it the bad word of the year. How annoying is that to you?

Dr. Silke Rühmland: Well, it doesn’t annoy me directly. It is just often used incorrectly. That is a bit of a shame, because one often means something like long-term, permanent - well, that's nice, but it isn’t limited with sustainability. Sustainability is more than just biodegradable packaging. That's important, but sustainability is much more extensive.

Dirk Alstein: Yes, maybe we will clarify the term again briefly. So according to the short definition - I wrote it out – please feel free to correct me: 'Sustainability is a principle of action according to which resources should only be used to the extent that natural regeneration is guaranteed'. So much for the short definition. But, how does that fit into the university now?

Dr. Silke Rühmland: Yes, defining sustainability is extremely difficult. So, depending on which department you come from, you would somehow focus on various things about sustainability and define them differently. I believe that the basics on which one can agree are the three dimensions that sustainability has. There is a social dimension, an ecological and an economic one. We can imagine ourselves socially as follows: We have many people here at the OVGU. Now if we say there is a great laser in some department or something. Moreover, it has to be cleaned. I don't know if that's true, if you have to clean it. However, if we send a person there and say, clean the laser here, then we have to qualify the person that they can do that too. We have to create the working conditions for this to work and provide the appropriate tools. With this, we would treat the human resource, the social, in such a way that it is sustainable, i.e. long-term, permanent, so that the person gets neither a bourn-out nor a bore-out.

Dirk Alstein: Oh ok. I think the bourn-out, that's catchy for me. All right! Do not wear out.

Dr. Silke Rühmland: Exactly. Don't wear them out, because from an economic point of view it's stupid if we have to replace our people on a regular basis. That costs money, too, before we hire the people and then we have to train them and so on. That also takes a long time.

Dirk Alstein: Yes.

Dr. Silke Rühmland: And with the ecological dimension, of course, it's also relatively simple: If we take too much from nature, then it can't be regenerated as quickly. This also means that we cannot operate in the long term. Therefore, these are so to speak the three dimensions. In addition, what does that have to do with the university? I mean, we are a huge company; we have many buildings, many people working here. Of course, we have to manage our human resources well and, of course, we have to make the large operation as sustainable as possible so that we can exist in the long term. This means that if we design certain things sustainably in our operations, it will also save us money in the long run.

Dirk Alstein: Okay, let's try to be a little more specific. What is happening at OVGU in the area of sustainability? So, examples would be nice.

Dr. Silke Rühmland: Examples would be nice: In the area of operations, it's really nice that we can say that last year we applied for funding for e-bikes with a specialist department, and we received a positive response, and we hope that we will be able to get three e-bikes by the middle of this year and integrate them into the vehicle fleet. That's something very practical. The employees can, so to speak, borrow these e-bikes and simply travel back and forth between the sites and buildings much more easily. You don't need a big car, but you can actually drive right up to your front door. That is very attractive.

In the area of teaching, we always have the lecture series 'Sustainability' in the summer semester. Various researchers and lecturers talk about sustainability from their specialist perspective, and that's pretty cool. And we have a coordinator for the sustainability certificate, which we want to introduce in the winter semester. You can think of it like this: Students can take certain courses so they can show, I now have a basic knowledge of sustainability and then just get a sustainability certificate on top of the actual master's degree or bachelor's degree.

What else do we have? Now that was teaching. In the area of research: we offer the Sustainability Forum. The Sustainability Forum is a networking forum where researchers and teachers can inform each other about what they are doing. And, it also offers a platform for developing joint research proposals, for example, and for enabling interdisciplinary teaching. There is also another platform for young researchers. This is what we call the 'Green Salon'. It meets once a month, where the mostly PhD students exchange ideas on certain topics or present their dissertation topics.

Dirk Alstein: Maybe this is a good place, because we are talking about concrete examples, to briefly mention the questions and suggestions that we asked for via Instagram. In the announcement, we asked what students could imagine or what they would consider as a suggestion for campus design. Maybe we can go through that very briefly. There are some submissions, and they mostly then actually revolve around parking. So I can read one out and it's the question, why is there only parking at the university for students within ... kilometers? Okay, I mean, that's probably meant differently: Why is there no extra parking for students who come from outside and have to travel by car? Or, why do those who come here also have to buy a parking ticket for it?

Dr. Silke Rühmland: Hmm yes, at the moment we - campus design is a bit more than just providing parking space. Campus design could also be ...

Dirk Alstein: … Yes, that will also come later.

Dr. Silke Rühmland: … how do you want to divide it up, but now specifically on the parking tickets: It is so that one has considered, well, the students in a certain radius; they can just use public transport or come by bike - that is also much more ecological. And, at the same time, those who really come from far away can actually get a parking ticket. But at the moment ...

Dirk Alstein: Oh, that's why the question ...

Dr. Silke Rühmland: Exactly.

Dirk Alstein: … from a certain radius limit ...

Dr. Silke Rühmland: … I think it should be 30 or 35 kilometers. I'd have to look it up again, but a certain radius is set, which means that if you get over it, you're entitled as a student to get a ticket.

Dirk Alstein: Now the question makes sense. Let's move on to the next one. And that's about the appearance of our campus. So why does our campus look like an industrial site, asks - ah no, I can't pronounce that name. Or why are most of the buildings so plain and monotonous instead of something more colorful or individual, asks FavibiOffischel.

Dr. Silke Rühmland: Okay. With the buildings, you would actually have to contact our department, Building and Real Estate. I don't know why the design is like that, I can't say. Of course, it's a relevant question, how do we want to keep our campus as attractive as possible, so that we like to be there and it's good for us. I think that over the next few years, in the long-term planning, especially with regard to buildings, we can think about these things even better. But there are also certain efforts, I think it's building 12, to put up a moss wall. It should become a bit more attractive. So, they are already in the process of doing something in some places.

Dirk Alstein: And, a question that actually goes with the previous one, so topic of travel: When is a bicycle parking garage coming? Well, you had just said that the best case scenario, the best ecological option, would be simply to get on your bike, if the distance allows it. But bicycle parking garage - do you need it?

Dr. Silke Rühmland: That's a good question. We would have to see what the demand is. We know from a bike-sharing survey that about 25 percent of the respondents don't even have a bicycle available. The question is, if you had a central parking garage, somewhere, then it becomes a bit unattractive. I mean, I want to park the bike exactly where I want to go. That's the cool thing about bikes, I can just drive right up to the door. And, I don't know if you want to take that away.

Dirk Alstein: Or, you can do it like in the Netherlands, where there are guarded parking garages. They counteract theft at the same time. Well, you have to walk a bit, but I know I'll find my bike exactly where I left it.

Dr. Silke Rühmland: So, that's definitely worthwhile, often at train stations. I studied in Göttingen. Of course, there was a guarded bicycle parking garage at the station. That was super attractive. Here on campus, I would personally rather see that we have better bicycle parking facilities in the form of covered parking spaces or also such cages, where you can then officially rent. People say, I come here regularly, and I rent a parking space for one euro a day and put my bike in a locked cage like that. There are a maximum of five bikes in there and so it's also safer on campus. But then I also ask myself again, if I have to pay something for my bicycle parking space, which is now secure, why do the cars here actually only pay five euros once for their parking space?

Dirk Alstein: Exactly.

Dr. Silke Rühmland: There would also have to be a discussion about the sense of justice between cyclists and car drivers. That is a longer discussion.

Dirk Alstein: Yes. It's not easy. That's why we'll get straight to the most important question that reached us via Instagram, and that's what Hanzun wants to know, and I'd like to know too: Who stole the pallet ship? Three Angry Smileys?

Dr. Silke Rühmland: Yeah, that's a good question. I don't know that either, of course, and it's realy mean, but ...

Dirk Alstein: (laughs)

Dr. Silke Rühmland: (laughs) ... I have to say, I also find it kind of remarkable, because this ship was also quite heavy, so how did they transport that away? I would actually also be interested in how they managed to transport that ...

Dirk Alstein: … yes...

Dr. Silke Rühmland: …if they made any rollers under there and then just pushed it away? Well, I'm actually interested in how they did it.

Dirk Alstein: So maybe we can just call out at this point, whoever did this, maybe they can come forward. I can't promise any immunity from prosecution here, but just to hear the story of how it worked logistically, that would be worth a podcast. Well, then maybe we'll do it together, Mrs. Rühmland.

Dr. Silke Rühmland: Absolutely.

Dirk Alstein: OK. But let's go back to sustainability and the specific examples you just mentioned. It sounded as if our university is already quite sustainable. Or do I have the wrong impression? And if so, where is the problem and why?

Dr. Silke Rühmland: I think we still have a lot of room for improvement in all areas of sustainability. I think it's becoming more and more of a topic in teaching, and we also have some projects in research that are either actually researching new findings in the area of sustainability or are also trying to make their research settings more sustainable, including the things they use there. That's totally positive. But now in terms of operations, I think we just have to keep going to achieve our goals that we also formulated in the 2018 sustainability strategy. That also means moving a bit out of our comfort zone and creating the space for a real transformation of the university towards more sustainability.

Dirk Alstein: (laughs) nice keyword: comfort zone ... we always talk about the university as a whole, that's also true. But of course, you can always hide behind this big construct. But, if someone says, okay, I actually want to get out of hiding and do something as an individual, what can you do?

Dr. Silke Rühmland: You can do a lot. You can ride a bike more. You can eat vegetarian, much more often than usual. When you air your home, you can ventilate properly by turning down the heating and then turning it back up again, because cold air actually warms up better and faster - you can do little things like that. But what is a very important idea is the idea of sufficiency in the form of 'I should only buy what I really need', that is, if I ...

Dirk Alstein: ... what is the term?

Dr. Silke Rühmland: Sufficiency, which means using only what I really need and not what I would like to have or want.

Dirk Alstein: So the proverbial question, do I need the new phone ...?

Dr. Silke Rühmland: Exactly.

Dirk Alstein: … do I need it now?

Dr. Silke Rühmland: Right, exactly. At the university, too: We still have a budget open at some chair and what do we do with it now? Ah, so we buy another computer, even though we don't need it. So there, too, how can we better distribute the resources we have? That we have resources when we need them and don't just - in quotation marks - squander them. That's nonsense.

Dirk Alstein: Yes, but that's... You have to, yes, you have to somehow get out of this comfort cycle and you have to question existing things for yourself, that's exactly your job. I wonder whether you sometimes see yourself unfairly as the nag in this respect. Because you have to constantly question or encourage people to do so: Think about it, is this really necessary? Do we really have to... Couldn't we perhaps do it differently? So ingrained processes are constantly being questioned. You have to be a pain in the neck, don't you?

Dr. Silke Rühmland: Well, I can't really judge how that will be received by the others, so to speak. So far, I think it's still going well, but you're absolutely right. It is a challenge to bring about change in an existing system. It requires an openness to the topic on the part of all those involved, an approach to each other, a discussion with each other. That's not easy either, because of course it also involves the possibility of failure. So we do things, we implement new things and they don't work, but we are a university here. We have all the potential here, we have the knowledge. We create or create new knowledge; we have people who find creative solutions. Who can design and transform – who, if not us?

Dirk Alstein: Where do we actually stand in comparison to other universities? That would interest me. Are there any comparisons? And, who does it better, and if so, how do they do it better?

Dr. Silke Rühmland: Yes, that is difficult to see in a national comparison. The universities are incredibly heterogeneous, they are very different in terms of size, orientation and location. Of course, this makes a comparison a bit difficult, but there are universities that do it very well. If we look at the University of Lüneburg now, they are dealing with the topic of sustainability all around, they have been climate neutral since 2014, I believe. We also have the Eberswalde University of Applied Sciences, a small university, which has also been climate neutral since 2014. As far as climate protection is concerned, we can see that they have really come a long way. There are universities that have also said something like: We want to be climate neutral in 2028 or 2030. We also have the goal of climate neutrality in our sustainability strategy, but there is no deadline and it is also not specified with which measures we want to achieve this, and as far as I can assess, our CO2 balance, certain areas are simply still missing, about which we cannot even make a statement. In other words, in the end, we can't even say how good or bad we actually are.

Dirk Alstein: Okay, but in any case, we're not in the lead, that's for sure. If you now say: Okay, but we have the claim to be among the best, can you estimate how much time we still have to keep up?

Dr. Silke Rühmland: Oh, that's a question. It's always a question of who you're comparing yourself to and which goals have priority, so to speak. But, if we now see the climate protection target, for example, and want to keep up with it, then we have to move quickly, I think we have to spend the next...

Dirk Alstein: Let us say in...

Dr. Silke Rühmland: In the next 3-4 years, we really need to...

Dirk Alstein: That's not much, is it?

Dr. Silke Rühmland: Nah, that's not much. That's not a lot of time for a big organization, for certain processes that have to go through democratically, that have to be discussed. But we're seeing a lot of movement across the nation. There are more and more green offices and sustainability offices, and they're getting better equipped. They're getting better docked. Governance structures at colleges and universities are being adapted so that sustainability is not just seen as a singular issue, but actually as a cross-cutting issue, something like internationalization. It is simply a cross-cutting issue, and it has to diffuse into every single unit, it has to get through. We have to live sustainability, not manage it.

Dirk Alstein: But maybe, I know we said this earlier, at the beginning. But, perhaps the question again: What do we get out of it? So what does Eberswalde get out of being climate-neutral, except that in terms of image, of course, it makes a huge difference and is certainly appealing to many prospective students. What do we get out of it? Economically, as you said earlier, it also has something to do with the workforce, which should not be wasted; satisfied and healthy workers are probably more effective, I'll just assume.

Dr. Silke Rühmland: Yes, absolutely.

Dirk Alstein: But what beyond that? Why should we do that? Irrespective of social responsibility.

Dr. Silke Rühmland: Well, I think that social responsibility is the best starting point, because we have it! Every person has the responsibility for himself and also for his descendants. And, if we don't start to change, who will do it for us? That is, actually we see, just by the federal climate protection law, where we all have to make savings, so to speak, and it is only a question of time, at the moment it is called a role model effect of the public sector. I assume that if we do not achieve the climate protection targets in the next few years, that at some point the public sector will be obliged to achieve all climate protection targets in its institutions on a percentage basis and that more and more research funding and other funding will depend on an environmental audit or a certain sustainability target that is achieved and not just set. So, I assume that social responsibility will simply increase in importance, but otherwise I think we simply have the potential here. We have the potential to simply shape things, we have so much knowledge, we are well networked. We just have to be able to create the structures in such a way that we can use this knowledge and that we can simply implement it.

Dirk Alstein: Who, if not us? I think you said it before, didn't you? Right, ok. I can't quite get around it, we said it before, April podcast, we're still in the Corona era. Now you haven't been in your position as coordinator for the sustainability office that long. Just about on time with the first lockdown last year, that's who I mean, you started your position. How much can you actually accomplish? Of what you've set out to do?

Dr. Silke Rühmland: Yes, it is... it was limited in some places, because of course such a coordinative function also depends on the fact that you have an exchange, that you can meet people. Of course, that's more difficult when you have to make concrete appointments and don't even, let's say, meet in the hallway, which is of course limiting. But that was limiting for everyone and for the students, who we have a lot of voluntary commitments, for example for the Eco-Social University Days or the Progressive Introductory Weeks, who design a lot there, they were also simply "online tired", it was also the feeling of...

Dirk Alstein: Yes, they want to do that. Don’t they?

Dr. Silke Rühmland: Yes, constant accessibility and, so to speak, this binding social element is missing in all the online exchanges, so that you can chat on the side or do something other than just function, and that is of course challenging for everyone, including us. But Corona has also created a spirit of optimism in the sustainability community, because the degree of networking among us has also increased. Because everyone was confronted with online formats and online tools, the willingness to do this is also greater and I would say the inhibition threshold is also lower to simply sit for an hour in a meeting where you don't know exactly: Is this something for me? Because you simply don't have to travel far, because it doesn't involve high costs, that's great. Here in Saxony-Anhalt, since this month, since March, we have a working group of sustainable schools in Saxony-Anhalt, we have brought all seven universities to one table. This forum is used to exchange information about sustainability activities, but also to advance state-specific projects. Our electricity, for example, is negotiated by the state, centrally for all universities, which means that if we want to say we want greener electricity, we want a lower CO2 balance through our electricity, then we have to make it clear to the state what the terms of contract should be. That means that we, in the area of sustainability, must first exchange ideas: What should the criteria be? How do we want to approach the state? And we also want to advance such projects jointly, and of course the digitalization that Corona has brought with it is great for this, and sustainability and resilience have also become even more important at the political level. As we can see, the German government's sustainability strategy was updated in March, and it once again states... This is totally exciting for us as a university, of course, what we will have in terms of room for maneuver and, for example, an organization has been founded, an association. They are called "The German Society for Sustainability at Universities" and they more or less want to bring the topic of sustainability and a wholeinstitution approach to the universities. They want to implement the topic of sustainability holistically in universities, in research, in teaching, in operations, in social transfer, and of course they also influence the BMBF or the German Rectors' Conference. The German Rectors' Conference is currently working on which indicators can be used for a so-called sustainability audit. That means that from 2022, they want to offer a so-called sustainability audit for all universities that want it, and that will then also enable comparability of the universities later on, so it's actually pretty cool.

Dirk Alstein: Okay, because you just said later. To conclude, why don't you give us an outlook? What projects are coming up now? What are the goals? Where do we go from here?

Dr. Silke Rühmland: Yes, very specifically: We are currently working on how we can create a sustainability report, so that we, first of all, record the status quo at the university. We are trying to follow the university-specific sustainability code, which is a code that was developed last year: How to do sustainability reporting according to 20 criteria that are as fixed as possible is something we want to try here at the university, which is of course a bit challenging. You can only present what you already have. This means that we will not be able to present some criteria at all, because we do not yet have them, and we are currently working on them. What can the report look like? How do we get all the information so that we can actually put it into this report and for us as a design element: We would like to make recommendations at the end. How do we have to change so that we can become more sustainable, i.e. what governance structures should there be at the university? What additional balance sheets or statistics would we have to keep so that we can make a statement about certain things in the first place? That's a very big thing, but of course we're also trying to build on the things we already have. So, the Eco-Social University Days are taking place again. The theme has been out since last week. That means for this year's Ecosocial University Days "Utopia - localchangefor global chance", there are again many students and initiatives from Magdeburg, which make events on this topic or in this topic area. We also want to do the Progressive Introductory Weeks, despite Corona. If we are lucky, then in hybrid and if not, then just online again, like last year, we can manage that. And then, we have some other small things, more sustainable print products. We want to talk to the student union again, like last year, and a more sustainable cafeteria would be great. But, these are things we need a lot of patience for. We have to persevere.

Dirk Alstein: And I wish you that, I hope... We have now listed how important this is for the university, not only in the social sense, but also for the university itself. We are basically at the end. There is another small section now, which is called 'Long story short'. I'm going to give you three sentences that I'd like you to complete, not answer, but complete, briefly or long, as you like. First sentence is: When I say I am the coordinator of the Sustainability Office, people usually think....

Dr. Silke Rühmland: ...boah, I have no idea what she does all day.

Dirk Alstein: Yes, right?

Dr. Silke Rühmland: Yes, yes! Exactly!

Dirk Alstein: And then you talk to them and then you think, 'God, how does she do that?'

Dr. Silke Rühmland: …it's just a lot of small things. And, I think it's incredibly vague for many people with this huge word sustainability, which can include anything.

Dirk Alstein: Yeah, second question, as the almighty coordinator, the superhero of the sustainability office, the first thing I would do is....

Dr. Silke Rühmland: ...get all measures underway so that we become climate-neutral here as quickly as possible, by 2030 at the latest.'

Dirk Alstein: I think that's good. Third and last question, I'm also interested in: If I find out who stole the pallet ship, then...

Dr. Silke Rühmland: ...then, I don't know, then I will send my little daughter's judo group there.

Dirk Alstein: And, the dancing chicken, that actually dances too. Thank you again, much success, much strength for your work Ms. Rühmland. To you out there, of course, thank you for listening. If you have any questions, feedback for us, please feel free to send it to the or use any other channels to reache us. All messages will, of course, be kept confidential if requested. We'll hear from us again in May. Until then, take care. Don't let it drive you crazy and thanks again for listening. Bye, until then!

Dr. Silke Rühmland: Bye!

Intro voice: “Listen in on the University” - The podcast on the world of work at the OVGU.