ENVIRONMENT
Automne Hiver – Fall Winter 2015 / 2016
A sustainable collaboration Between 2008 and 2015, five internationally renowned professors were invited by bank Landolt & Cie SA to spend an academic year sharing their knowledge at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EFPL). At the heart of this initiative was an original collaboration as explained by Jean-Denis Bourquin, the project coordinator. — Text Loïc Delacour / Photos Pierre Vogel
A
s is often the case, the story started with a meeting. During the course of 2007, Pierre Landolt, President of the Board of Directors of the private bank Landolt & Cie SA, and Patrick Aebischer, President of the EPFL, discussed their common vision. Both men were convinced that building a sustainable world meant sharing knowledge and training elites. To implement this doctrine, they decided to create a new type of public-private partnership. The Landolt & Cie SA Chair “Innovations for a Sustainable Future” was Jean-Denis Bourquin
born within the ENAC, the School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering, at the EPFL. This Chair would enable five professors to spend one academic year each on the campus. The guests were all global specialists in sustainable development. Over the years, the auditoriums and laboratories of the school welcomed professors Amilcare Porporato, a hydraulic engineer; Anne Nolin, an expert in mountain hydro climatology; Megan Murray, a professor in epidemiology; José L. Torero, a fire prevention specialist in complex environments; and Philip G. Jessop, a researcher in green chemistry. During their stay, they not only continued their research but also gave lectures to the students of EPFL, supervised semester works and master projects, participated in conferences, and organised interdisciplinary activities for the general public. A SCIENTIFIC AND HUMAN ADVENTURE
The coordinator of the Chair, Jean-Denis Bourquin, was at the very heart of a fascinating initiative. “It is one of the most interesting projects I have led,” he says, “and one of the most gratifying. It was a long-term investment aimed at communicating values with a strong ethical dimension. An adventure on both a scientific and a human scale.” Scientific, of course, because the guest professors arrived in western Switzerland with their own research projects. José L. Torero, for example, has received his fair share of accolades and attention for his expertise in the field of building sustainability, and more precisely the resistance of tower buildings to fires. He was even involved in inspecting one of this century’s major catastrophes: the collapse of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York. Anne Nolin, Associate Professor in the Department of Geosciences at Oregon State University, shared her knowledge concerning the effects of climate change on snow with those ski resorts directly concerned in the canton of Valais. 42 REGA R DS n ° 8
The global approach adopted by Amilcare Porporato towards the ecosystem and the growth cycles of plants has provided new insights into environmental interactions. The students, microbiologists and environmental engineers at the EPFL took advantage of the valuable teachings of Megan Murray to conduct a study of cholera transmission in Haiti in the wake of the recent earthquake. The Canadian Philip G. Jessop used his stay to embark upon a series of collaborations while developing his research into chemical products and clean methods of substitution from an environmental standpoint. The Chair is also a human adventure, as a project on such a broad scale offers numerous opportunities to meet and share outside the more formal academic sphere. There are some rather amusing anecdotes, such as Philip G. Jessop becoming addicted to Swiss fondue and endeavouring to identify the very best cheese in the region. There were also some highly stimulating discussions, such as those between Amilcare Porporato and Pierre Landolt on the subject of ecohydrology in semi-arid regions. A HANDS-ON SPONSOR
Whatever the case, Jean-Denis Bourquin believes that this public-private partnership was a total success thanks to the healthy relationships between the different stakeholders in the project. “The people concerned, be they on the academic side or the sponsors, were all on the same wavelength. The bank Landolt & Cie SA was involved in the different stages of the project, from selecting the professors to monitoring their activities, thereby favouring the mutual trust that is essential to academic freedom.” Today, the Chair is venturing into something else: the private financial service provider and the EPFL will be pursuing their collaboration within the ENAC through the Swiss submission to the multidisciplinary, international Solar Decathlon 2017 project.