To mark its 100th anniversary,
The new professorship takes the place of an assistant professorship of the same name that Holcim has been financially supporting since 2006.
Buildings and their construction, are responsible for about 40% of global CO2 emissions, so environmentally-friendly construction is becoming more important. ETH Zurich includes sustainable construction as part of its strategic focus in teaching and research.
“Support for this endowed chair by Holcim allows ETH to increase its research capacity in a key area into the long term”, says Ralph Eichler, president of ETH Zurich. “Now we can increase the pace of urgently needed research in this area. The construction industry will also benefit from these efforts.”
Bernard Fontana, CEO of Holcim, says: “There is enormous potential in this area, and I am convinced that future generations will be able to construct buildings in a much more environmentally conscious way thanks to innovative methods and processes. We hope that this new professorship will be heavily involved in finding and disseminating solutions for optimised resource usage that can be implemented quickly.”
Guillaume Habert, a French citizen working as a research engineer at the Université Paris-Est in France, has been named as the new professor of Sustainable Construction.
