LRZ's Environmental Policy

Preamble

The Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (LRZ) of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BAdW) is the competent IT partner for the universities and colleges of Munich as well as scientific institutions in Bavaria, Germany, and Europe. As a national high‑performance computing centre and operator of state‑of‑the‑art IT infrastructures, we are aware of our social responsibility and actively contribute to the protection of the environment and the climate. We are committed to designing our processes and infrastructures sustainably, in a resource‑conserving manner, and in accordance with applicable labour and environmental laws as well as other binding obligations. Our goal is to continuously reduce the environmental impact of our activities while developing innovative solutions for a sustainable digital future.

Sustainability & Resource Consumption

We strive to continuously improve our efforts in the areas of environmental protection and sustainability and therefore take the following measures:

• We commit to reducing environmental impacts to a minimum and—where possible—to avoiding or eliminating them.
• In procurement and operations—particularly of high‑performance computers and cooling systems—we take environmental and energy‑efficiency considerations into account.
• Before disposing of electrical and information technology equipment, we thoroughly check whether it can be reused and/or whether we can make it available to charitable, governmental, or public institutions. Otherwise, we ensure proper disposal.
• We continuously work on improving the energy efficiency of the data centre and have established a dedicated research focus in this area.
• We continuously monitor the waste heat generated by LRZ operations and, together with partners, create opportunities to use this waste heat sustainably beyond the boundaries of the LRZ.
• We use resources such as water, raw materials, and land sparingly and efficiently.
• We maintain and design the green spaces available to the LRZ sustainably, so that they promote biodiversity and create habitats for plants and animals.

Awareness and Empowerment of Employees

We can only achieve our ambitious goals if all employees pull together. Therefore, raising awareness and empowering our staff is essential:

• We regularly inform our employees about the environmental strategy and the organisation’s goals and measures, and we actively involve them in the assessment, planning, and implementation of environmentally relevant actions.
• We integrate environmental and climate protection as fixed components of internal communication in order to strengthen awareness and responsibility at all levels.
• Through training courses, information campaigns, and internal events, we raise employees’ awareness of environmental issues and motivate them to act sustainably.

Environmental Statement and Continuous Improvement

Sustainability, climate protection, and environmental protection have enjoyed a high priority at the LRZ for many years. We strive to continue meeting our own standards in the future and to continuously optimise our measures.

• We regularly review our environmental management system and work continuously on improvements to sustainably enhance LRZ’s environmental performance.
• In an open and transparent dialogue, we inform our stakeholders about environmentally relevant activities and their impacts. This is done in particular through the publication of an environmental statement that is available to all interested parties.