Food for thought at Sustainability Week

The first ever Sustainability Week was a great success! Presented by MU’s Sustainability Committee, the kick-off week focused on a particularly pressing theme: Food.

The idea was conceptualized by MSc students and Sustainability Committee members Hélène Gorny and Dave Leonard as a week of activities and events, each time centered around a different sustainability-related theme. The goal is to raise awareness on a specific topic, foster students’ participation and ultimately help students to critically reflect on their own behaviors.

The inaugural week featured a screening of the documentary ‘Dirt – The Movie’, ‘'an insightful and timely film that tells the story of the glorious and unappreciated material beneath our feet,’’ which explained how very important the soil is for growing food and sustaining populations in an engaging manner (complete with animated dirt!).

Next up, the week’s first presentation ‘’MU's Bee Hive: Beekeeping at MODUL University’’ introduced students to their future ‘neighbours’. Biologist and beekeeper Dr. Christopher Schludermann was invited to discuss sustainable beekeeping using the methods of 19th century French Cleric Émile Warré.
This simple method employs a frameless system of wood, cloth, and metal slats for the bees to build their honeycombs on. A hive of this type will be placed in the Vienna Woods near to the university this spring, so that students will be able to see nature working its magic, and taste the fruits of its labour – honey.

MSc student Klaus Renoldner and Simon Büchler of SOL ‘' Menschen für Solidarität, Ökologie und Lebensstil’’ teamed up to talk about ''Sustainable food practice: Practical examples to reorganize personal nutrition in a more sustainable way.''  They explained how an ecologically sustainable lifestyle is strongly connected with food consumption. Reducing meat consumption and sourcing from regional producers helps to lessen the amount of CO2 emissions created through food transport and commercial farming. They highlighted innovative ways of food production, such as urban gardening, connected with more sustainable ways of distribution, e.g. via ‘food cooperations’.

Their talk certainly made an impression on BBA student Rochel Sarikov who commented ‘’thank you all for an illuminating afternoon! Going to eat some beans instead of a beef steak tonight...’’.

Sustainability Committee member Stefan Gindl was also very pleased with the turnout, ‘’the Sustainability Week is a platform to introduce students into sustainability issues, kindle their interest for the topic and foster exchange with experts in the area. After its great success we feel confident that we can attract the interest of even more students and motivate them to work together on their own future!"

Stay tuned for the next Sustainability Week – the topic will be announced soon!