Sustainability and Climate Protection

Sustainability

The Faculty of Law is committed to sustainable development. In line with the University’s sub-strategies, it emphasises the importance of sustainability as a cross-cutting issue and, within the limits of its capabilities, contributes to the respectful management of environmental, economic and social resources.

In teaching, the existing range of courses has been appropriately expanded to embed the theme of "sustainable development" across all curricula. 

The departments recognize and document sustainability in their research.

Climate Protection

To implement the university’s targets for reducing CO₂ emissions, the faculty has adopted the Climate Roadmap 2030.

In 2024, the faculty’s (recorded) CO₂ emissions broke down as follows:

With the Climate Roadmap 2030, the faculty has set itself the target of reducing overall emissions. For air travel, the aim is to achieve a reduction of at least 20 percent by 2029 compared with the base year of 2019.

The following principles are to be taken into account:

• The aim is to achieve this target primarily through information, appropriate incentives and specific, effective and targeted measures.
• The measures to be taken should not be limited to the figures measured as part of the University’s greenhouse gas inventory, but should also have an impact beyond this.
• The measures must not impair collaboration in international research projects or the quality of research.

Measures are to be implemented in the following areas of action:

• Digital: Reduction of electricity consumption and emissions from the IT infrastructure; provision of information, IT training, extending the life cycles of hardware, etc.
• Events: Guidelines and best practices for organising and running sustainable events at the faculty
• Air travel: Establishment of a CO₂ levy on air travel funded by the university/faculty or by third-party funding. Use of the funds raised to build up a mobility fund that provides a "public transport bonus" for environmentally sustainable business travel – primarily for the benefit of early-career researchers.