In 2016 KIT has become founding member of the Global Consortium for Sustainability Outcomes (GCSO), a global network that advances solutions to sustainability problems through research, development and capacity building by generating, testing, implementing and, ultimately, bringing to scale a wide range of solutions including technologies, policies, economic incentives, social change and cultural practices. GCSO includes diverse global partners who can transform ideas into action. The consortium builds capacity through education and transfers evidence-based solutions to implementers, with the goal to achieve sustainability outcomes on multiple continents. GCSO’s success is measured by evidence-based, positive outcomes and impacts on sustainability issues worldwide.

From 2017 on ITAS engages in the transdisciplinary and international collaboration project “Urban, Rural, and On-Campus Solutions: Living Campus Accelerator Toolkit” (UROC) which initially focuses on the energy-water-waste nexus by utilizing university campuses as living laboratories for sustainability transformation.

UROC develops a process that features a five-step approach (“Living Campus Accelerator Toolkit”): it (1) identifies an energy, water, or waste challenge; (2) utilizes UROC developed baseline tools for assessing quantitative and occupant-driven qualitative data; (3) develops one or more behavior change interventions; (4) funnels the results through an holistic evaluation scheme for verifying results and building a business case; and (5) is packaged in to a scalability map for submission to policy or decision-makers, and for use on other campuses and by off-campus organizations in different geographical, climatic, and cultural contexts.

Engaging different building users and stakeholders from operations and facility management, and students of the campus it will design and test up to 3 collaborative experiments facilitated at 3 implementing Universities in order to create a learning space, built capacity, and eventually foster behavioral change. This is a crucial element that gives space for societal change as one of the important elements for a sustainability transition.

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