Active Project Groups
Join an active project group and make a difference!
Reading Group: Climate Literature
Be informed, share, spread important knowledge and take action - one way to do these things could be to hold reading groups that examine literature on climate change or other environmental issues. In this project group, you compile a reading list and meet to discuss what you have read. This is also an opportunity to get to know like-minded people and their different views. You can also think about how you would use this knowledge to benefit the climate. Concrete ideas for projects may emerge during the reading process, which we can publish here to find people to implement them. For example, we could offer environmental education workshops in schools to spread the word. Curious to know which people are interested in the same topics as you?
Benefit Concert for an Aid Organization
Do you enjoy music and would like to organize a benefit concert? The power of the Swiss franc is many times higher abroad than at home. We personally get in touch with aid organizations such as Doctors Without Borders, the Pestalozzi Children's Foundation and the Red Cross to find out where our money can make a difference.
Venture Capital: Financing the Energy Transition
In order to slow global warming, we must rely on renewable energy. This transition costs money, and it will not be governments that open their wallets wide enough - Dr. Georg Brasseur, who shared his view in a lecture to the Austrian Academy of Sciences, believes that it will be investors who speculate their venture capital on green energies. According to Dr. Brasseur, it should be more widely known how worthwhile it is for investors to use their venture capital to finance technologies that drive the de-fossilisation of our energy systems. With just a bit of persuasive power, the financial impact of this project group could easily reach the 6-digit range.
Food Waste
At other universities (such as the University of Neuchâtel), student associations collect unsold bread, sandwiches, and desserts from bakeries at the end of the day and pick up leftover fresh produce from the weekly vegetable market. The next day, this unsold food is distributed free of charge either to students or to those in need. Those interested in starting such a project in Zürich, in whatever form, can join this group.
"Naturperlen": Planting Trees
Are you ready to go out and do something for biodiversity? Have you always wanted to help with a tree planting campaign?
The project "Naturperlen" was started by three friends with the aim of planting endangered trees and shrubs and thereby creating valuable habitats in urban and rural areas of Eastern Switzerland. In cooperation with municipalities and farmers, hotspots of biodiversity are created.
Ideas
Or bring life to a new Idea!
Workshops in Schools
Many in our circles think of environmental protection and sustainability, but not Hansli and his father Hans-Peter. Hansli flew to Vienna, Paris, London, and Madrid five times last summer, not knowing that a short-haul flight produces the same emissions as a year's worth of driving. Hans-Peter had a new oil heater installed last winter to keep his children warm with fossil fuels. How can we better spread our knowledge about the causes and consequences of climate change? One way is to sensitise generations from an early age, such as in schools. Ideas for this are, for example, building a platform accessible to teachers with ready-made lesson plans on sustainable topics or designing and offering our own workshops.
Culture Sensitised: Poetry Slam
Sensitising the audience to environmental issues within the framework of a cultural event can be done, for example, at a poetry slam. Can we motivate amateur slam poets to perform a text that represents a certain attitude on how we can achieve the energy transition, represent values of sustainability, rub climate change in the public's face as a task that urgently needs to be solved, or convey other content on nature conservation in an artistic way?
Promotion of Sustainability
Help aid organisations to become better known or companies to make the economy greener and more sustainable! Students can promote a good cause on campus with an advertising motif on their backpack and profit from it. AdBag is a concept launched by FHNW and HSG students that has already been successfully tested. During the pandemic, however, the project was halted and is now waiting for a new team and new form.
What are the organisations and companies we would like to work with? Co-founder Simon Haller supports the new project group as a mentor with his experience and know-how from the successful start-up phase of AdBag.
Refugees in Switzerland
There are fortunately already many structures in Switzerland that try to alleviate the suffering of refugees. These are based to a large extent on volunteer work, but their potential is far from exhausted. With good ideas, we can expand them - organisations like the regional offices of the Red Cross are highly open to cooperation. How can we make refugees' stay in Switzerland as humane as possible? How can we go about finding enough volunteers for our project idea? Where can existing relief organisations give us a hand?
Content producer for the aid organization Helvetas
Do you have an idea how to convey the work of a development organization to a young audience? Helvetas is a development organization against global poverty, but they also want to expand their educational offerings in Switzerland. Would you like to support Helvetas in expanding its reach in Switzerland?
