The task now is to raise awareness of the net zero target within the ETH community and to offer connection points for many ETH members. Zingerli knows how laborious transformation work can be. She is guided by questions like these: What does it mean to research, teach and study when we are in the middle of climate change? How should we approach the topic of net zero? And how can we gain access to people who are more interested in topics other than the climate?
The last point, for example, has been addressed by several improvised pop-up events including martial arts on the Polyterrasse and H?nggerberg over the past few days. ETH students and staff staged fights involving Jiu Jitsu – a Japanese samurai martial art for unarmed self-defence. The motto was "Tackling the challenge".
You may be asking what the martial arts have to do with net zero.
Pop-up fights as a dialogue opener
One connection can be drawn from the motto. Anna Kn?rr from the SPEED2ZERO research initiative initiated the pop-ups and explains: "Like net zero, the martial arts are about facing up to challenges." Jiu Jitsu not only symbolises fighting but also joint training, in which cooperation and togetherness are key. "There is also a connection to net zero because we can only achieve the goal together," she says.
The pop-ups are intended to evoke the interest of passers-by and encourage people to engage in dialogue. According to Sebastian Kahlert, who coordinates the Net Zero programme at ETH Sustainability, this has worked well: "Many people took part in the role play and found the analogy interesting. In this way, we reached ETH members who weren't at all familiar with our climate target," he says.