The Sustainability Monitor 2023 shows that Leiden University is taking its sustainability efforts seriously.

Education, Research

Leiden University has appointed a new supplier for furniture procurement, signing a contract emphasising sustainability and reuse. This approach is already delivering results: when furnishing the new Spui Campus this year, more than half of the furniture was reused.

Researchers, civil servants and local residents met on 27 September to talk about partnering for sustainability. What were the results? In a green ‘city oasis’ in the centre of The Hague they spoke about the energy transition, bottom-up initiatives and citizen science.

The new interdisciplinary bachelor's program in Science for Sustainable Societies starts in the 2025-2026 academic year.

Today marks the launch of the LDE Bachelor Honours Programme Sustainability. Students from Leiden University, TU Delft and Erasmus University will work together on concrete sustainability issues of organisations. Interest in the new programme turned out to be overwhelming. Two lecturers involved share…

Scientist and engineer working on the future of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), focused on making LCA understandable and accessible.

Some thirty Leiden students balanced on SUP boards for the Supping for Sustainability Lustrum activity. Together with alumnus Merijn Tinga, better known as the Plastic Soup Surfer, they paddled their boards through the Leiden canals and waterways, fishing plastic waste out of the water.

Vincent Walstra is PhD candidate at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology of Leiden University.

Ebbe Rogge is an Associate Professor at the Hazelhoff Centre for Financial Law.

Ekaterina Pannebakker (1981) joined the Department of Civil Law as assistant professor in 2016.

Esther van de Camp is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology at Leiden University.

Genevieve Noordeloos is affiliated to the Institute for Private Law as PhD fellow since September 2023.

Merlijn van Weerd is an ecologist studying biodiversity distribution and richness patterns, the impact of human activities on biodiversity and the effectiveness of biodiversity conservation. He is a part-time lecturer at both the Faculties of Science and Social Science and leads the Mabuwaya Foundation,…

Leiden University has taken eighth place in this year’s SustainaBul, the sustainability ranking for universities and universities of applied sciences in the Netherlands. It was in 18th place last year.

The Sustainability Monitor 2024 reveals that Leiden University has again taken significant steps to become a more sustainable and future-proof university. Since 1990, its carbon emissions have decreased by 50 per cent and, compared with 2019, its natural gas consumption has dropped by 32 per cent. Its…

Education, Research

Would you like to take concrete steps toward a sustainable university or do you have a broad interest in sustainability? Over 200 staff members have already joined the Leiden University Sustainability Network. And there is always room for more – even if you’re no expert on sustainability, says project…

Leiden University and the Municipality of The Hague signed a collaboration agreement on sustainability on 1 November. Their main goals are to build a network, share knowledge and explore the possibilities of a Climate Centre for the people of The Hague.

Freezers set three degrees higher, a recycling bin for plastic petri dishes or timer switches installed on equipment: a growing number of Leiden University laboratories are taking small – but effective – steps to reduce their environmental impact, via the internationally recognized Laboratory Efficiency…

Xiaoyang is a guest researcher at CML, where he previously worked as a postdoctoral researcher on the 'Future Availability of Secondary Raw Materials (FutuRaM)' project. He earned his PhD also from CML, with a thesis titled 'Sheltering 10 billion people in a warming and resource-scarce world: challenges…

Oli is an environmental economist studying the sustainability of global food systems with a focus on transitions of diets, food trade, and farmer livelihoods.

Robert is an environmental engineer whose research lies at the intersection of sustainable resource management and decarbonization, assessing the environmental and economic benefits and trade-offs of natural resource use and waste valorization in industrial decarbonization. His work is grounded in the…

Shashank is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Environmental Sciences and is working on the development and operationalization of a Safe and Sustainable-by-Design framework for additive manufacturing-enabled repair and remanufacturing within the NWA ADD-reAM project.

Erik de Maaker is Associate Professor at the Institute for Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology at the Leiden University.

Cristina Grasseni is Professor Cultural Anthropology at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology of Leiden University.

Research

Buurtlab 070 is a new Leiden University project in which residents, researchers and students from The Hague work together on climate, sustainability and biodiversity solutions. What do they expect of the lab?

On Friday June 2, the Liveable Planet event 'Interdisciplinary Collaborations - Food, Sustainability & Health' will take place. Here, researchers can learn everything about how to set up successful interdisciplinary collaborations. Why should you attend this event? We’ll give you three reasons.

Education, Research

Diversity

What do you do if you want to reach the widest possible consensus on a decision, ensuring it represents all the feelings and ideas within your team? The Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) tried the Deep Democracy method. It proved successful: ‘Everyone had a say without us getting stuck…

At the Netherlands National Open Science Festival in Rotterdam, 400 people with a heart for research and sharing knowledge came together — including many Leiden University employees. Four colleagues told us about their Festival experience, and their work to practice Open Science at Leiden University…

The Executive Board is visiting the university’s institutes to find out what is going on. On 8 July 2025, it was the turn of the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML), one of the fastest-growing institutes at Leiden University. ‘Our main aim is to preserve our planet for future generations.’

Sander ten Caat is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Public Administration.

Prof. dr. De Iongh is associate professor in the department Conservation Biology CML and guest professor in Habitat Conservation at the Faculty of Sciences of Antwerpen University, Belgium.