The ETH Mobility Platform launched in spring 2016 is the main point of contact for everything surrounding mobility at ETH Zurich. Its principal goal is to reduce energy consumption and resulting CO₂ emissions from mobility related to the daily business of ETH. This includes trips to, from ETH and between its locations, ETH business travel, barrier-free mobility as well as delivery and distribution of goods.

As an internationally renowned research and educational institute, it comes as no surprise that more than half of ETH CO₂ emissions are produced by air travel to arrive to e.g. scientific conferences abroad. International exchange and collaboration is of course key for research excellence, yet the greatest CO₂ reduction potential also lays herein. Moreover, given that flight-related CO₂ emissions have increased steadily in recent years at ETH, it is clear that a strategy for lowering the carbon footprint must tackle this issue. A concept has been developed for this purpose and each department will set its own reduction targets and measures this year. The mobility platform is facilitating this participatory activity and an accompanying dissertation will study this process and evaluate the outcomes.

Though air travel is the giant among CO₂ sources, local solutions can also contribute to lowering emissions. To this end, campus mobility measures aim at improving sustainable options for ETH employees and students for their daily commute and travel surrounding ETH. One of these measures was the pilot operation of smide, an e-bike sharing platform. Since this test operation resonated very positively, the service was extended and ETH members can rent smide e-bikes for both business and personal purposes under special conditions year-round now. ETH is also collaborating with other bike sharing services such as PubliBike and LimeBike. In collaboration with the City of Zurich, another measure intends to improve bike routes between ETH Center and Hönggerberg.

Find out more about the ETH Mobility Platform.