Fachbereich Erziehungswissenschaft und Psychologie

Did you know that every FU member at Dahlem campus uses around 33 bathtubs of water per year?

Or

Did you know that being at uni, every person uses as much heating as would be needed for half a single-family home per year?

The Freie Universität’s sustainability report contains numerous facts and figures that provide insight into the university-wide consumption of resources and CO₂ emissions. As part of our sustainability team’s work for the Psychology Unit, we have compiled some figures for the Dahlem campus to describe our consumption as specific as possible.

The following figure shows the annual per capita consumption for the Dahlem campus.

 

Here's what you can do!

As part of this university, we should all feel responsible for saving resources and reducing waste. If you see something – do something: close the window if the heating is on, turn down the heat before opening a window, turn off the light when no one is in the room, inform the facility managers if something is not working!

Save water and report dropping water taps!

Consider this: Depending on how fast it drips, a leaky faucet wastes between 3 and 24 liters of water per day, which can add up to 1,000 or even 9,000 liters a year (Quelle UBA https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/umwelttipps-fuer-den-alltag/essen-trinken/trinkwasser#was-sie-fr-klimafreundliche-trinkwassernutzung-tun-knnen). 1,000 litres are one cubic meter, 9,000 litres are nine cubic meters – from one single faucet! If you see a dropping water tap, tell the facility managers ASAP!

Electricity – Turn off the Lights!

We all know turning off the lights saves energy – it is a small contribution but also easy to do! But do you also remember to turn off your monitor or even better - the switch on your power strip? Apart from your own office or working place in the library, there may be other locations or places within the university where you can be aware of energy saving – seminar rooms, mail and copy rooms, hallways. The electricity systems in our building are too old to install motion detectors in the hallways, so we have to help ourselves!

Heating

Precisely because the insulation in our buildings isn’t very effective, we should regularly check that the radiators are set correctly and, of course, avoid heating rooms unnecessarily or letting them get completely cold. During heating season, remember:

1. ALWAYS first switch off the radiator completely (*) before opening a window.
2. Turn your radiator on 2 (not lower) when you leave for the weekend or for some days. Keeping a moderate temperature is much more energy efficient than heating up a room after it became cold.

Paper

Help to make our university paperless and bring processes that may as well work digital to everyone’s attention! You can leave a note with your suggestions here.

Bulky waste

Use the FUndgrube to both reduce new purchases and unnecessary bulky waste.

Commuting

The results of the latest mobility survey at FU (2025) show that many members already commute to work using public transportation, but there is still room for improvement!

Take part in the Stadtradeln-Challenge (https://www.stadtradeln.de/berlin)! Do something for your health and for the climate.

Business travel

A rough estimation comes up to 56 t of CO₂ for the Psychology-Unit in total for all business travels in 2024. Business travels are the area with the biggest possible impact for reduction. We have compiled some more information on sustainable travel for you here.

Digital consumption

Digital consumption (e.g., use of data centres, data transmission networks, web surfing, data production and saving) is becoming an increasingly important sector. We should all reflect on unnecessary energy consumption in research, teaching, and other areas. You can find some insights in this article: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-026-02426-3 ("Sustainable neuroscience through open science" in Nature Human Behavior, 2026).

If you see something, do something!