The University of Twente works hard to make its operations more sustainable. At many locations on the campus, you can find places where we use smart solutions to save energy, promote biodiversity or save water. However, these measures are often not very visible. To give them the attention they deserve and to introduce the UT community to our sustainable campus, a new walking route with information boards was created: the Sustainability Walk.
Discover sustainability on campus
The Sustainability Walk is a walking route of about 4 kilometres across UT's green campus. At 13 places along the route, you will find an information board about a special and sustainable initiative at that location. The boards - made of oak wood from Twente from the sustainably managed Twickel estate - feature a QR code that you can scan for even more information about that point. The route can be walked independently. More information and the full route (for Google Maps and Komoot) can be found at utwente.nl/sustainabilitywalk.
Shift in thinking
Coen Nieuwenhuis, director of Campus & Facility Management (CFM), is pleased with the Sustainability Walk. "In our department - and beyond - many people are working from their own expertise to make our operations more sustainable, and we should be proud of that. There really has been a shift in thinking in recent years: sustainability is no longer something that should be solved by a small group, but instead something that is present everywhere at UT. We also see that students consider this a very important subject. At CFM, we take the step from thinking to doing. It’s great that with the Sustainability Walk we can show what we are already doing to realise the sustainable campus. This is a task that we will of course continue in the coming years: ideally, we will place additional signs at even more beautiful, sustainable solutions in the future."
The Sustainability Walk is an initiative of the SEE programme, which aims to integrate sustainability into UT's operations. Programme manager Brechje Maréchal has been organising guided walks on sustainability on campus regularly for several years, from which the idea for the new Sustainability Walk emerged. "There are so many sustainable measures we can show. We find that with the Sustainability Walk people get inspired. Students also see opportunities for research projects, for example. We hope it will contribute to embedding sustainability even further in everything we do at UT."
More information
Curious about the Sustainability Walk? You can find more information on the website. The full route can also be found below. You can start and finish at any point on the route.
More information about sustainability at UT can be found at utwente.nl/sustainability.
