The International Students’ Committee (ISC) is constantly striving to
combine the aspired high quality of the St. Gallen Symposium with an efficient use of resources. Ever
since our initiative was set up, sustainability has been one of our key concerns. In 1972, this was
highlighted by the presentation of the Limits to Growth study commissioned by
the Club of Rome at the St. Gallen Symposium – a milestone in the symposium’s history which initiated
our ongoing discussion of this challenge for decision-makers from the fields of business and politics
at the symposium. Particularly in the light of this year’s thematic focus on the issue of natural resources,
we wish to let our participants experience this spirit within all dimensions of the symposium.
We
will be working together with committed partners to offset the inevitable CO2 emissions from transportation
and from energy consumed on the symposium premises by supporting climate protection projects in developing
countries. This year, we will jointly support a project which involves equipping schools and homes in
Eritrea with solar energy plants. We will continue our efforts in this area in the years to come, and
drive them forward with the help of new and existing partners from the world of business.
Selected
members of the ISC Support Crew – our green helpers – will be keeping a critical
eye on how the symposium is run, and will draw our attention to any possibilities for using resources
even more efficiently in order to help us realise our vision of keeping the ecological footprint of
the St. Gallen Symposium as small as possible.
Because we are actively
living this vision, and want to bring something about not just in the future but right here and now,
we use the team bicycles – which are already very popular among ISC Team Members – for trips around
St. Gallen, while for the transportation of goods we make use of advanced hybrid and bioethanol drive
systems.
These are just a few of the ways in which we plan to continue
the tradition of an ecologically sustainable St. Gallen Symposium. We hope in this way to inspire participants
and to give them a little food for thought, and we also hope that they will carry on giving us new ideas
in return.
