Sustainability at the GIGA

The GIGA sees sustainability as an important guiding principle informing its entire operations. Through its research and other activities, the GIGA strives to support society’s responses to the major challenges of today. Within the political frame of reference provided by the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it aims to focus its research, research-based knowledge exchange, and services on the goal of sustainability. At the same time, it also contributes to the achievement of this goal through the sustainable design of operational and research processes.

The GIGA stands for best research practice, incorporating scientific excellence and social relevance. Many of the UN’s 17 SDGs and their targets are addressed by GIGA researchers in the GIGA Research Programmes. In addition, the GIGA has identified “sustainability” as one of its key strategic overarching themes, closely linked to many of the Institute’s core topics of research. 

The GIGA uses its expertise to promote and develop a better understanding of sustainable development. In doing so, it actively integrates concepts, perspectives, and experiences from different world regions in its Global Approach to Scholarship. Among other sustainability-related topics, Climate Change and the Global South has long been a strong focus in our research.

Regarding sustainability as an organisational goal, our core focus is on:  

• sustainability in organisational development,  

• sustainability in research processes,  

• sustainability in personnel management, and 

• sustainability management in the operation of premises and infrastructure, and in procurement and mobility. 

The Executive Board has appointed six team members to form the Task Force Sustainability Management, coordinated by the Managing Director. The group’s mandate is, among other tasks, to propose specific sustainability-oriented measures as well as to give advice and support on all matters related to sustainability management. As a first step, the Task Force suggested a Sustainability Mission Statement for the GIGA, approved by the Executive Board in March 2022.

While sustainability in organisational development, research processes, and personnel management is taken charge of by other GIGA bodies and units (such as the Research Council, the HR team, the Works Council, the Ethics Committee, the Ombudspersons for Good Research Practice, the Equal Opportunity Commissioners, and similar), the Task Force Sustainability Management focuses on sustainability management in the operation of premises and infrastructure as well as in procurement and mobility. A number of concrete measures have been initiated here:

• Greenhouse gas accounting: The amount of CO2 generated by the GIGA was reduced from 530.94 tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2019 to 307.33 tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2022; see the reports for 2019 and 2022

• Electricity from renewable energy on all GIGA premises

• District heating on both Hamburg premises

• Only vegetarian catering at GIGA events and meetings

• Binding guidelines for the investment of the GIGA’s foundation assets, including social, ecological, and ethical standards

• Only recycled paper with Blue Angel certification for printers and photocopiers

• Climate-neutral printing of the GIGA Annual Report 2022 and on Blue Angel paper

• Reducing electronic waste by offering discarded IT hardware to team members free of charge

• Participation as a team in the city cycling initiative (“Stadtradeln”)

• Survey among GIGA staff about mobility to identify options to reduce CO2

• Use of online and hybrid meeting formats, where feasible and suitable

• Subsidising certain public transport tickets (HVV-ProfiTicket, now Deutschland-Ticket) for employees

• Provision of suitable facilities for bicycle parking

• Mainly cloud-based IT infrastructure (substantial reduction in energy consumption compared to on-site solutions)

• Enabling mobile work (“home office”)

• Permission to take domestic flights being granted only in very exceptional cases