Panel moderation: Future of Sustainability
On 25 February 2026, Owen moderated the closing panel at “UZH Sustainable”, a university-wide event in the UZH Aula showcasing how the University of Zurich is putting sustainability into practice — in its operations, teaching, research, and its place in the international climate debate.
Opening the evening, Rector Michael Schaepman illustrated the scale of the problem: compressed into diamonds, the world’s annual rise in atmospheric carbon (3.6 gigatonnes) would amount to around 18 quadrillion carats — enough to fill Lake Zurich within four years. Vice-Rector Gabriele Siegert set out UZH’s 2019 sustainability policy and its Strategy 2030, spanning operations, research, teaching, and public engagement, pointing to concrete progress such as an 18% cut in catering-related emissions by 2024 and new degree programmes including a Sustainable Finance minor and a Bachelor in Sustainability. Researchers Christian Huggel (on glacier melt, permafrost loss, and urban heatwaves) and Zacharias Sautner (on sustainability as a financial risk and opportunity) each gave a short talk on their own work, and Dean Katharina Michaelowa described the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences’ internal carbon levy (CHF 130 per tonne CO₂) that funds climate-friendlier travel.
That closing panel looked beyond UZH itself, with David Schimel (Research Scientist, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory), Sonia I. Seneviratne (Professor, Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zurich), and Marco Lambertini (Convener, Nature Positive Initiative). All three argued for a fundamental shift: Lambertini said the world still clings to a nature-destroying economic model despite the evidence, and that prosperity isn’t possible without intact nature; Seneviratne pointed out that around 90% of CO₂ emissions still come from fossil energy, and that shifting to renewables is both ecologically necessary and increasingly the cheaper option; and Schimel reflected that science had underestimated both the pace of technological change and the true cost of climate damage — concluding that climate action is now a matter of economic sense rather than sacrifice.