Sustainable Action Hub

What will you do on Sustainability Day?

Come to school on public transport, car pool, walk or cycle?
Bring a reusable water bottle to school and fill it from a water station?
Make sure your lunch is made from locally sourced produce?
Go meat free for the day?
Reduce energy use by making sure electronic devices are turned off when they are not being used?
Close windows to reduce energy use?
Help to reduce the school's trash by recycling and using reusable containers?
Not use/purchase products that are wrapped in single-use plastics?

Let us know what you are going to do

Sustainability Day - Wednesday February 28, 2024

Transport

Transport Hub

Key Facts and Figures

Passenger travel demand in Europe increased by 20 per cent between 2000 and 2019.
Between 1990 and 2021, greenhouse gases produced by transport in Europe increased by more than 15 per cent – that’s around 780 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.
Energy from renewable sources used for transport in the EU increased from under two per cent in 2005 to 8.7 per cent in 2022.
The European Green Deal is aiming for a 90 per cent reduction in transport emissions by 2050.
Between 2021 and 2022, the number of fully electric passenger cars in the EU increased by 58 per cent compared to 2021 – from 1.9 million to 3.1 million.

How can you get involved?

Want to join the green transport revolution? It’s now even easier: check out all these options.

Connect to carpool

Use our carpooling platform to find someone going to and from school at the same time as you, helping to reduce car journeys. Parents can connect to share rides for their children and employees can commute together through this free-of-charge service. To get started, just log into the ZIS carpooling platform, which is exclusive to our community members in partnership with HitchHike, a leading carpooling company based in Switzerland.

Try public transport

Swiss children of all ages use public transport to travel independently to school – it is very important part of a traditional Swiss childhood! And cars produce around 164 grams of carbon dioxide for every kilometre they travel. So why not try using public transport or walking on ZIS Sustainable Schools Day? If you travel 5km to school and 5km back by public transport, you’ll prevent 1,640 grams of pollution from getting into the atmosphere – in just one day.

Bus/Train timetables

Switch to the Village Liner

This ZIS-exclusive chaperoned bus service travels a set route between Park Im Gruene and the Lower School, with nine fixed pick up/drop off points in Ruschlikon, Thalwil, Oberrieden and Horgen. Find schedules, prices, and more information here.

Learn More

Use the Lower School door-to-door bus service

This service takes younger students direct from home to school on fully sustainable electric eight-seater vans. It follows custom-made, specific routes on the school side of the lake between Zürich Enge and Pfäffikon SZ (except Wädenswil, Au and Horgen). This year, we have added new collection points in Zug and Baar. Find schedules, prices and more information here.

Learn More

Use the Thalwil Secondary Campus Shuttle

It’s the ideal add-on to public transport for students living along the lake as well as in Zug/Luzern and Schwyz/Glarus areas with trains stopping at Thalwil. The shuttle is exclusive to ZIS and operated by AHW Busbetriebe: register at any time via PowerSchool – or check availability with the Bus Coordinator, Roland Gähwiler, at bus@zis.ch.

Five things you need to know about your transport footprint

Driving to school every day, flying to another country on holiday, taking the car to the shops – every transport decision we make has an impact on our planet. In fact, transport is the only sector in the EU that has produced more greenhouse gases over the past 20 years, rather than less – of which carbon dioxide (CO2) is the best-known. And transport accounts for around a quarter of the globe’s carbon dioxide emissions (1). Here’s why – and what you can do about it.

Three transport ideals that could change the world

Picture a world where walking or cycling is easy and pleasant, public transport is the norm, and aeroplanes are running on non-polluting fuel. The air is clean, the Earth is more peaceful – and traffic jams are a thing of the past. It’s a world where greenhouse gas emissions are no longer a problem for the planet and everyone is healthier and happier, too. So how do we get there?

The great battery race

Electric cars are now widespread, with one in four consumers saying they plan to buy one in the future (1). But they need to be able to go longer distances before they need recharging – and that’s where battery research comes in. The batteries used currently – lithium-ion batteries – have numerous problems. Recycling the rare and toxic metals inside them is highly complex: it costs more to recycle them than to mine them (2). And some studies have shown that their production can result in higher emissions compared to petrol and diesel cars.

Scientists are now racing to find solutions. In the US, the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory is looking at battery performance. It has created a lithium-air battery, which could be used to power not just cars but domestic aeroplanes and long-haul trucks. These batteries use a solid electrolyte made from a cheap ceramic polymer material rather than the lithium-ion battery’s liquid electrolyte. It’s hoped that the lithium-air battery will have an energy density of 1200 watt-hours per kilogram – nearly four times better than lithium-ion batteries.
Meanwhile, an international research team from the University of New South Wales in Australia and Yokohama National University in Japan has come up with a battery that can be charged hundreds of times without losing capacity, reducing the number of batteries that must be disposed of or recycled.

The clean flying challenge

The clean flying challenge

In 2023, the first-ever transatlantic flight on 100 per cent sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) took off from London Heathrow in the UK, landing in New York. Experts from universities including Imperial College and companies including Virgin and Boeing are now studying how the fuel performs: it’s believed that SAF could reduce CO₂emissions by 70 per cent.

But scientists are also looking at other ways to minimise the damage done by flying – for example, changing flight paths to lower altitudes. At high altitudes, when hot gases meet cold low-pressure air, contrails form – the cloudy white paths left by aeroplanes. These can affect climate warming just as much as CO₂. A study from Imperial College found that flight altitude changes of just 2,000 feet could reduce climate harm by up to 90 per cent.

The smart thinking revolution

The smart thinking revolution

And low-tech ideas have a huge part to play, too, such as encouraging more people to use public transport. Recently, countries including Spain, Germany and Ireland have all experimented with drastically reduced public transport fares – with fascinating results. In Germany, when a €9 monthly travel pass was temporarily introduced, car congestion declined, and shorter train trips increased.

City planning, too, can make a huge difference to carbon emissions. A recent study published in the journal Nature Climate Change found that cities incorporating green spaces and nature-based solutions into their infrastructure don’t just capture carbon – they reduce it by helping to change behaviour. More parks, for example, will encourage people to walk and cycle. The challenge may be huge – but the future is bright.

Careers

Sustainable transport is an exciting and rapidly growing sector – and those with the right skills and experience are likely to be much in demand in the future. Check out these roles.

Battery research scientists are in huge demand: the work they do to improve current battery technology and find new ways of storing energy is crucial to companies from Tesla to Meta. You could work within a company on their specific products, start your own company, or work within a university research team.
- Great career for: Hard scientists who relish a big challenge.
Sustainable transport consultants advise companies, governments, and cities to make transport more sustainable. You might be helping solve problems such as low cycling and walking rates, under-used routes, or low accessibility.
- Great career for: Motivated problem-solvers who thrive on variety.
Sustainable transport marketeers will play a vital role in the sustainable transport revolution. It’s your job to sell the benefits of green transport to the wider public and get them excited about how it can make their lives better. Again, you could work within a company – one that makes electric cars, for example – or within a university, or as a freelance.
- Great career for: Fantastic communicators who believe in their mission.

Pollution

Pollution Hub

Facts and figures

Air pollution is still Europe’s biggest environmental health risk. In 2021, exposure to key air pollutants caused 327,000 (2) deaths in the EU-27.
That same year, 97 per cent (3) of people living in urban areas were exposed to pollution levels above World Health Organisation guidelines.
Pollution affects vulnerable people in society more – such as people in lower socio-economic groups, older people, people with pre-existing health conditions and children. Around 1,200 children die from the effects of air pollution in EEA member and collaborating countries every year.
Energy and agriculture are the two biggest sources of Europe’s air pollution: over 50 per cent comes from our energy consumption alone.
Passenger cars account for 61 per cent of total CO2 emissions from EU road transport – yet each car carries just 1.6 people on average.

Four things everyone needs to know about pollution and health

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), 99 per cent of us are breathing air with an unsafe level of pollution. So how does pollution damage your health?

Not just asthma

1. Not Just asthma

If you’ve ever lived next to a busy road or in a city, chances are that you’ve had first-hand experience of the damage air pollution can do to your breathing. But new research is increasingly showing that pollution can also affect most of the major organs and systems in our bodies – from our hearts to our brains.

Large chimney spewing smoke into the a sunlit sky

Invisible Killer

2. Invisible Killer

There are many pollutants in our air, but the three big killers are fine particulate matter (PM_2.5), nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) and ozone. (O₃) Of these, fine particulate matter is the most dangerous, killing 253,000 in the EU-27 in 2021. These microscopic particles – which measure approximately 1/30^ththe average width of a human hair – penetrate deeply into our lungs whenever we breathe them in. They are mostly produced by residential, commercial, and institutional energy consumption.

Model of a human heart on a medical text book

Damaged for life

3. Damaged for life

Heart disease is the biggest cause of deaths attributed to pollution, followed by stroke, diabetes mellitus, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer and asthma. Each of these conditions can drastically reduce your quality of life for years before killing you before your time –it’s estimated that pollution takes 2.2 years of life off our global life expectancy.

Mental Health

4. Mental Health

Ozone – produced when pollutants react to sunlight – could be associated with a higher risk of anxiety and depression, along with respiratory disease and asthma. A recent study found that pollution can even be linked to lower test scores in children. It looked at data from 2.8 million children in North Carolina, USA. For every measurable increase in particulate matter, children’s math and English test scores dropped.

How can I get involved?

Feeling inspired? Great – because there is so much you can do to help reduce pollution around our school. Here’s how.

Connect to carpool

Use the Thalwil Secondary Campus Shuttle

Seven things you never know about pollution research

Careers

The world needs people who want to reduce pollution and its harmful effects – whether that’s through efficient monitoring, targeted health research, innovative policies, or clean energy. Interested? Check out these careers:

Environmental scientists and engineers apply scientific principles to make the environment better for everyone. They can be found doing hundreds of different roles – cleaning up polluted land or water, designing new water and drainage systems, coming up with new or improved ideas for clean energy such as solar panels.
- Great career for: Science-obsessed problem-solvers who love a challenge.
Environmental policy specialists work to come up with new policies to improve the environment, and work with governments to help make changes. You could work at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), for example, which exists to “inspire, inform, and enable nations and peoples to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations.” Or you could work at a more local level, helping cities and regions to develop policies in areas such as traffic management.
- Great career for: Passionate advocates who think differently.
Environmental health specialists focus on how our environment affects our health – everything from pollution exposure to how our cities are laid out. You’ll find a wide range of specialisms within this role – you could be helping a city understand how low-emission zones affect asthma in children, for example, or working with a company to reduce its air pollution.
- Great career for: Good communicators passionate about public health.

Energy

The Big Energy Challenge

We are switching to 100% renewable energy – and we have ambitious targets to drastically reduce our energy consumption overall. Energy is key to our vision for becoming a sustainable school. The City of Zurich has set a target of net zero emissions by 2035 and the EU plans to reduce emissions by at least 55 per cent by 2030. To reach these targets we all need to play our part. Here’s how we plan to do it.

Replace the Lower School’s gas temperature control system with a geothermal system.
Buy only renewable energy.
Max out our solar potential, installing solar panels across both campuses.
Replace the Upper School’s ventilation system and complete LED installation on both campuses.
Encourage practical everyday steps, such as remembering to close windows and turning off devices that are not in use.

How can I be a part of it?

Support the installation of solar panels at ZIS by making a donation to the Annual Fund

Each panel will produce approximately 435 watts of energy at peak capacity for a combined annual yield of nearly 300,000 kWh once all panels are fully online. That's enough to power more than 67 homes a year!

Learn more

We'd love you to be a part of it

Talk to your kids about why if everyone takes small actions, it adds up to a big action – whether that’s at the level of your home, your school, your canton, or your country.

How will we know it’s working and what happens next?

Your kids will see building works and lots of behaviour changes! We’ll be monitoring our progress and reporting back to you each semester.

More information

You can find out more here:

Waste

The Big Waste Challenge

Our school uses a lot of resources: plastics, paper, water, materials. Meanwhile, resources are becoming scarcer, and waste is damaging our local environment. So, we’re challenging ourselves to reduce single-use plastics to zero, reduce fresh water consumption by 50 per cent, reduce trash by 30 per cent, and to ensure all paper and cardboard is recycled – by August 2024.

Why does it matter?

Take plastics. Around 14,000 tonnes of plastics end up in Switzerland’s soil and water every year – and because plastic degrades very, very slowly it remains there almost forever. It’s a relatively new problem: in the 2000s we generated more plastic waste in a decade than in the previous 40 years. Microplastics have been detected in Lake Geneva, in the food we eat and in the water we drink. Reducing our plastics, waste and recycling will need lots of different small actions.

Here’s how we plan to do it

Single-use plastic

Phase out all single-use plastic bottles, tableware, and cutlery – with none in use by January 2024. Meanwhile, we’ll be working on phasing out single-use plastic packaging – to achieve no single-use plastic on site by August 2024.

Non-plastic, reusable tableware

Invest in non-plastic and reusable tableware, cups, and glasses, which will be used in community events including WorldFest, the Welcome BBQ, Ghana Cup etc. The plates and cups are plant-based, and we believe that they are a great improvement over the disposable items we have always used in the past.

Using reusable bottles

Introduce improved water fountains at the Secondary Campus so that students can easily refill reusable bottles.

Analyse our waste

We want to reduce trash by 30%. There’s no quick fix for this – so we will be doing a root-cause analysis and increasing our recycling to reach the goal.

How can I be part of it?

We’d love you to be a part of it. Talk to your kids about why if everyone takes small actions, it adds up to a big action – whether that’s at the level of your home, your school, your canton, or your country. Make sure they bring a refillable water bottle to school. Think about whether you can switch reusable plastics – from cutlery to plastic bags – at home to items that can be used again and again.

How will we know it’s working and what happens next?

Your kids should see an immediate difference at lunchtimes and events.

We have already phased out all single-use plastic bottles, tableware, and cutlery
We partnered with the Parents' Association to introduce sustainable, reusable tableware at the Welcome BBQ and WorldFest.
We have installed more water fountains at the Secondary Campus for easy reusable bottle refills.

We’ll be monitoring our progress and reporting back to you each semester.

More information

You can find out more information about plastics and waste in general here:

Food Waste

The Big Food Waste Challenge

Food is a key part of our sustainability drive – and one of the trickiest to achieve. We have big plans: we want all our food to be locally sourced, with minimal packaging and waste. Procurement – what we buy, and who we buy it from – has the potential to make a big impact on our own sustainability and on encouraging sustainable practices in the local area.

Here’s how we plan to achieve this

Locally sourced, seasonal products

Work closely with our catering provider, Novae Restauration, who have looked at sustainability across their business, from ensuring locally sourced and seasonal products to ensuring the detergents they use in their dishwashers are non-polluting.

Reduce food waste

Reduce food waste by 30 per cent through improved communication, planning, and stock management.

Sustainable supply

Review relationships with all suppliers to ensure that our sustainable supply is robust and work to address sustainable practices with our top 10 suppliers.

How can I be part of it?

We’d love you to be a part of it. Talk to your kids about food miles and the impact of food waste.

How will we know it’s working and what happens next?

Your kids should see an immediate difference at lunchtime and in the cafeteria. We’ll be monitoring our progress and reporting back to you each semester.