Making public space more sustainable is considered very important in this project. The Humanities Campus will become a pleasant place to spend time, with lots of greenery. Here, people can relax and find coolness on hot summer days.

During the development of the Humanities Campus, as many 'green choices' as possibile are being made. This concerns the buildings as well as the surrounding area. Making the campus more sustainable is measured using the BREAAM.NL method.

More than 30 members of Programme Committees, Faculty Councils and the University Council met online on 27 November with a mission: how can university co-participation work towards a more sustainable university in terms of education, research, and operations? The Leiden University Green Office and the…

The new Bachelor Honours Programme Sustainability is a unique joint initiative by the LDE Centre for Sustainability and the Honours Academies of Leiden University, Delft University of Technology and Erasmus University Rotterdam (LDE Alliance).

Crises like climate change and loss of biodiversity pose serious challenges for public governance, from the local to the global scale. With the Centre for Governance of Sustainability we contribute to addressing these governance challenges. Our focus is on how policy processes and governance practices…

The relationship between States and foreign corporations are regulated by international economic law and international investment law in particular. Any disputes between States and foreign corporations must therefore also be solved by reference to this body of public international law, for example when…

Creating a framework to assess the sustainability of fish farms which will set sustainability standards and give consumers information about the the sustainability and safety of their seafood.

Twenty years from now, the world population is estimated to be around 9 billion people (now 8 billion). In combination with the improvements in living standards and the corresponding growth in consumption, this population will result in an enormous increase in the demand for food, consumables, water…

Institute of Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science, Leiden University

The plans for making the University Library (UB) more sustainable will be carried out in three steps: first the glazing at the front of the building will be replaced with HR++ glass, then the skylights will be renewed and finally the air conditioning system will be updated. Once these steps have been…

By placing food at the centre of investigation, this Minor explores current-day debates on political, environmental, economic and cultural change at both the local and global levels.

Central in coordination and organometallic chemistry is the synthesis of new chelating ligands, the synthesis and characterization of metal complexes with these ligands, and the study of their properties. An important goal in my research is to create understanding of the relation between the structures…

What makes a pension scheme sustainable? Most answers to this question have revolved around expert assessments of pension schemes’ affordability or adequacy. This study shifts focus from the financial or social sustainability of pension scheme designs to their political sustainability. The key question…

In-use stocks of products can be considered as intermediaries between human needs and the physical world.

The Faculty of Law is becoming more sustainable in many ways, both in teaching and research.

Latest since Rutger Bregman’s “Utopia for Realists”, Universal Basic Income (UBI) has caught public attention again as a possible solution for many societal issues. Watch the event back via the video below.

Our current lifestyle is not sustainable, and we know it. Our carbon-based economy causes climate change, and our livestock threatens the rainforests. We also know what we ought to do to save the planet: decarbonize the economy and change our diet. However, too many people lack the moral motivation…

In this course, you will learn about sustainability and staying with the environmental boundaries of our planet. You will gain an understanding of the effects of growing affluence and population growth, the key challenges we are facing, and ways to influence your direct environment.

The following report discusses a survey on the topic of the Sustainable Development Goals that was distributed among researchers at Leiden University in the month of November 2021.

The following guide relays information on tips and tricks for travelling by train and bus, and which online tools you can use for sustainable travel and trip planning.

Are you interested to learn more about frontier innovation thinking and practices? Do you want to explore the societal relevance of frugal innovation? Are you up for a multidisciplinary challenge? Do you want to combine theory and practice? If you are answering these questions affirmatively, you are…

Can the pink-pigmented microbe Methylobacterium extorquens be genetically engineered to convert the sustainable raw material methanol into antibiotics?

The main research theme in the group of Dennis Hetterscheid is to understand and mimic bioinorganic multi-electron processes that are relevant to our future energy infrastructure. Reduction of protons generates hydrogen that can be used as a chemical fuel. Alternatively to gaseous hydrogen, the reduction…

A place where scientists and students from Leiden University and residents of The Hague come together to create innovative solutions for sustainable living in the city: that's what the Sustainable City Lab aims to be. When we talk about "sustainable living" we think of many different things. For example:…

Research practice, funding agencies and global science organizations suggest that research aimed at addressing sustainability challenges is most effective when ‘co-produced’ by academics and non-academics. Co-production promises to address the complex nature of contemporary sustainability challenges…

The article 'Co-productive agility and four collaborative pathways to sustainability transformations' is published in Global Environmental Change and accessible via OpenAccess. Professor Anthropology of Sustainability and Livelihood Marja Spierenburg of the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development…

This project investigates ancient water management of streams, springs and runoffs on the archaeological site of Monte Albán, Mexico, as a means to contribute with different stakeholders in the development of sustainable solutions to water problems today such as floods and scarcity.

Study information

On May 9th 2023, LUGO hosted its big Sustainability Day Event, on the theme: the planetary boundaries! The event, which took place at the Academy Building in Leiden, included an opening talk by Prof.dr.ing. Jan Willem Erisman, among others. At the closing, LUGO also awarded its first place prize for…

What is the optimal design of sandy solutions for sustainable climate change adaption, from an ecological, biophysical and societal point of view?

Tax scandals, like the Panama Papers, the Paradise Papers, and the Pandora Papers, have made taxation a major topic of public debate. Learn more about this in the new minor Tax and Society: Building a Sustainable and Fair Tax System.

Science, Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS)

The demolition of the high-rise building is ready. The remaining debris are removed and the area is cleared. For the demolition, the University applied the BREEAM evaluation method at the level of ‘Excellent’, which means that the demolition operations were carbon neutral and did not cause any form…

Indonesia is experiencing various environmental challenges related to its fast economic growth. Therefore, it is necessary to have measurable and applicable indicators to obtain accurate data and information regarding the costs of adverse environmental impacts arising from economic activities to support…

How do we approach education that facilitates creative confidence for students that leads to innovative solutions to society’s present day and future sustainability challenges? This education research project tackles a sustainability dilemma faced by households in everyday life viz.

This 3-year EU Erasmus+ co-funded project focuses on the strengthening and improvement of teaching qualitative research methods across a range of disciplines in the Social Sciences and Humanities in Bhutan.

What is vegetation structure and composition in SFM primary forest, secondary logged over forest (logging FSC certified and logging non certified) in comparison to primary forest? What is avian guild diversity in SFM primary forest, secondary logged over forest (logging FSC certified and logging non…

There is an increasing amount of attention on EU and its Member States contributions to implementation of two landmark agreements: the Paris Climate Agreement and the UN Agenda 2030 with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Absent from the current literature is an analysis of the political effect of…

Promotor: G.R. de Snoo, Co-promotor: H.H. de Iongh, C.J.M. Musters

In times of hardships or crisis, local people know how to deal with it using their resourcefulness. Although efforts are sometimes made by the government to help them, they are fully aware that community support is at least equally important.

On 9 June 2020, Maral Darouei defended her thesis 'Managing a sustainable career in the contemporary world of work: Personal choices and contextual challenges'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. J.I. van der Rest.

At the start of the 20th century there were fewer than 2 billion people. Now at over 7 billion, Earth’s population is on target to reach 8 billion by 2027. How has this dramatic increase in human population impacted Earth’s life support systems and natural resources? How should we understand the meaning…

Co-ordination Action for Innovation in Life-Cycle Analysis for Sustainability: deepening, broadening and leaping forward the LCA methodology.

In higher education, Open Educational Resources (OER) are available for anyone to use, but they are not widely used.

Food security is challenged by a growing global population and by climate change. Drought and soil salinity are considered the most important ones that inhibit crop yield and distribution. Worryingly, climate change is predicted to increase not only their frequency and severity, but also their co-occurrence,…

Promotores: Prof. dr. G.R. (Geert) de Snoo, Dr. E. (Ester) van der Voet

CitiObs will consolidate and apply tools and practice-based knowledge for co-creating data, knowledge and local action regarding the environmental impacts of climate change and human activity in the urban context via Citizen Observatories.

This project investigates the effects of the Asia-Pacific War (1931-1945) and the Korean War (1950-1953) on the production, distribution, preparation and consumption of food in transwar Japan and Korea.

A framework for prospective/ex-ante life cycle assessment (LCA) and ecological risk assessment (ERA) of emerging technologies is developed and applied to a case study of III-V/silicon photovoltaic panels.