2018

The Swiss Association for Energy Economics (SAEE) awards Fabian Rottmann with this year’s price for his Master thesis “Spreading the use of responsive adjustment mechanisms for renewable energy deployment policies: An agent-based modelling cross-country evaluation”.

We are looking for a PhD student in the field of stationary and mobile energy storage.

The interplay between policies, technologies, and organizations in the next phase of sustainable development – this is the focus of the 11^th ETH Academy on Sustainability and Technology.

Professor Volker Hoffmann was awarded VSETH's Golden Owl 2018 for the MTEC Department.

Timo Busch and Jens Hamprecht from SusTec have published the article "Value(s) for Whom? Creating Value(s) for Stakeholders".

SusTec and HSLU researchers continue working on a collection of Guidelines for Renewable Decentralized Energy Systems (RDES). 

Amanda Williams joins Prof. Volker Hoffmann's Group for Sustainability and Technology (SusTec) in October 2018 as a Senior Researcher.

Researchers from Empa’s Urban Energy Systems Lab and SusTec have evaluated and compared different storage systems in Swiss neighborhood applications of decentralized energy systems from 2015 to 2050.

We welcome Quentin, who has started writing his master’s thesis at SusTec this week.

The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) approved our project proposal "Unpacking pathways to corporate sustainability” for a three year funding period.

A new paper by Marie Byskov Lindberg, Jochen Markard and Allan Dahl Andersen analyses the policy mix and actor positions in EU energy policy.

Evan Petkov joined Prof. Volker Hoffmann's Group for Sustainability and Technology (SusTec) in September 2018 as a PhD candidate

Inese started her PhD in Prof. Ambühl’s group on negotiation and conflict management in September 2018 and will spend 30% of her time with sus.lab.

Johannes Meuer offers an International QCA Paper Development Workshop in November 2018. The workshop provides a platform for researchers working on papers involving QCA to meet QCA experts, get feedback on their on-going research, and learn about the latest methodological developments.

SusTec had the pleasure to offer a workshop on Circular Economy Solutions at the German National Academic Foundation’s “Praxisakademie” in Koppelsberg, Germany, in August 2018. An interdisciplinary group of 18 students from various European universities spent 6 days working on innovative solutions to reduce waste generated by throw-away products under the guidance of Prof. Volker Hoffmann, Dr. Petrissa Eckle and Jakob Prüss.

Dimitra will write her master thesis on the topic of timber for high rise buildings.

A new conceptual paper by Jochen Markard suggests using the TIS framework not just for emerging but also for mature, and even declining technologies.

We congratulate David Grosspietsch for the successful completion and defense of his doctoral thesis entitled “Fostering Technological Change for a Sustainable Built Environment: The Role of Policy, System Design and Performance” on July 27th, 2018.

Julia joins the Sustainability in Business lab (sus.lab) - an initiative of SusTec

Johannes receives the Above and Beyond the Call of Duty Reviewing Award from the OMT Division of the Academy of Management.

Marianne joins the Group for Sustainability and Technology in June 2018 as a PhD candidate on Circular Economy.

We congratulate Fanny Frei for successfully defending her doctoral dissertation entitled “Incumbents In The Energy Transition: How Electric Utilities Adapt To Their Changing Business Environment” on July, 3^rd 2018.

The Group for Sustainability and Technology welcomes Julia as a PhD candidate in Corporate Sustainability.

Hendrik Clausdeinken has been awarded the Willi Studer Prize 2018 for the best master’s degree in Energy Science and Technology and the ETH Medal 2018 for his master’s thesis on “Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) – Hot air or a real option?”

An interdisciplinary group of 19 researchers from 11 different nations spent 5 days in the Swiss Alps for the 11th annual ETH Academy on Sustainability and Technology, hosted by SusTec.  

SusTec researchers Fanny Frei, Allister Loder, and Catharina Bening have published a new article in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews that reviews green power markets worldwide with regard to their liquidity.

Yan Zhang joined the Group for Sustainability and Technology in June 2018 for his Master's thesis in Integrated Building Systems MSc. at ETH Zurich. In his thesis, he evaluates the potential of innovative technologies and identifies the business opportunities for building facade systems.

SusTec researchers Fanny Frei, Simon Sinsel, Ahmed Hanafy, and Jörn Hoppmann have published a new article in Energy Policy that investigates changes in business portfolios of the biggest electric utilities worldwide during the energy transition.

A new article by SusTec researchers Joern Hoppmann, Florian Naegele, and Bastien Girod, which studies the role of boards of directors for organizational inertia in times of environmental discontinuities, was recently accepted for publication in the Academy of Management Journal (AMJ).

On June 7^th 2018 SusTec researcher Simon Sinsel will lead a workshop on the role of large electric utilities in the energy transition. Simon will present and discuss two studies from SusTec researchers with industry representatives at the forum.

This new perspectives article from SusTec researcher Jochen Markard in Nature Energy argues that we are currently entering a new stage of the energy transition that is qualitatively different from the first phase.

With a total time of 10h 01min, the SusTec team successfully covered the running course of 114km finishing 350^th overall.

SusTec Researcher Christof Knoeri answers a couple of research and non-research related questions in the “Feierabendgespräch” of the second Edition of the 2018 Phase 5 Journal. 

The SusTec' Corporate Sustainability lecture participated in the finals of this years KITE award 2018. In total, 27 teaching concepts from every department of the University were submitted. Four were shortlisted – among them the Corporate Sustainability lecture.

Together with two colleagues from the University of Hamburg, SusTec researcher Joern Hoppmann has published a new article that investigates the role of external change agents for corporate sustainability.

The Group for Sustainability and Technology (SusTec) searches for 1-2 Postdoctoral Researchers with quantitative modelling experience in the field of technological and institutional change in the energy sector.

Karoliina joins our group as a visiting scholar to work with Jochen Markard on industry decline in the energy transition.

Jakob joins the TACLE project (NFP 73) as a PhD student. He will investigate circular economy policies, in particular how policy framework conditions such as regulations affect innovative activities of firms towards a closed-loop economy.

Teaching anyone properly about Climate Change is a difficult task. On 19 March 2018, SusTec played “The World Climate Simulation” an innovative teaching simulation developed by the MIT think tank spin-off Climate Interactive and facilitated by Prof. Dr. Florian Kapmeier.

Prior to sus.lab, Marija spent several years working for impact investment funds in microfinance, agriculture and climate and provided part-time support to sustainability-driven start-ups

On 19 March, SusTec has invited Florian Kapmeier, Professor of System Dynamics at ESB. Together with Florian, we will experience an innovative simulation on “World Climate: Negotiating a Global Climate Change Agreement.”

On the SDSN Switzerland Launch Conference SusTec senior researcher Nicola Blum gives an inspirational talk on how research can support the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and on the role of collaboration therein.

Researchers from SusTec have assessed the how, when and where of self-sufficient energy supply to a solar-powered neighborhood.

In a new report, SusTec researchers shed light on the drivers and barriers of solar PV in three settlements managed by the UN refugee agency. Focusing on the case of water pumping, they find that solar PV systems may provide a viable alternative to conventional forms of electricity supply. However, to leverage the potential of solar PV, several technical, institutional, financial, and social aspects need to be taken into account.