Who are our leaders? What drives them, and what do they work on? In Boardwalk, we head out each quarter with an Executive Board member to visit a unique spot on campus. In this episode, we join President Koen Janssen as he takes us to two locations where sustainability is actively being advanced. "Sustainability should not be a goal in itself, but something embedded in everything we do and who we are," Janssen explains.
The president is clear about TU/e's ambitions in this area: "As a university, we have a responsibility to ensure that future generations are not compromised." He sees a key role for the engineers trained here. "We make sustainability an integral part of their education and instill in them a strong sense of responsibility as engineers. It is embedded in the DNA of our programs. That's how they can become the change agents of the future and make a real impact on global challenges."
Encourage reuse
A strong example of educating students as change agents is the Challenge-Based Learning (CBL) course Circular Electronics by Lorenzo Ceccarelli , winner of the 2025 Sustainability in Education Award . This course brings together students from different disciplines to develop solutions for electronic waste (e-waste). "We explore how circularity can be encouraged within the field of electrical engineering." From his perspective, Ceccarelli believes the time is right to bring disciplines together and move into action. There are still a few established business models or processes for reusing, repairing, or easily disassembling electronic products. Together with his students and industry partners, he explores ways to make electronic products more sustainable throughout their lifecycles.
Anna Orzel, Student Sustainable Innovation (IE&IS), and Maria Benvenuti, Student Data Science (M&CS), explain in the video why they chose this course. "It's a crucial issue, because electronic waste is the fastest-growing waste stream on the planet," Anna says. Maria adds: "If we want to make electronics more circular, it's essential to invest in reuse methods and new design approaches."
Embedding in our DNA
The president acknowledges the complexity of the challenge: "Sustainability is easy to say, but not easy to do. It requires collaboration across disciplines, true transdisciplinary work. That's why it's so important to embed it in the DNA of our engineers. This is how they become the change agents of the future. And that is exactly what we need to address these enormous global challenges."
Sustainability is not only central to education, but also to campus development. Janssen explains: "In the recently presented Campus 2040 master plan, we outline our vision for new construction as well as the renovation of existing buildings, such as Gemini South. We take responsibility by phasing out natural gas, for example, and by reusing materials."
Driven by curiosity
Sustainability is also a guiding principle in TU/e research. "This is where we develop new ideas: research driven by curiosity. When sustainability is taken as a research starting point, it leads to sustainable products and processes."
One field that has seen significant research at TU/e over the past decade is photonics and photonic chips. Martijn Heck , Professor of Photonic Integration, explains: "The advantage of photonic chips is that they require far less energy than chips based on electrons." Janssen adds: "With increasing pressure on the energy grid, it is essential to use energy efficiently, and these chips contribute to that."
