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Sustainable development
The environmental and climate emergency has already profoundly transformed École Polytechnique's educational missions, reflecting the commitment of its academic teams and its student community to respond to these threats.
École Polytechnique is constantly adapting its academic programs to prepare all of its students for the new situation of the ecological transition so that they can understand and measure the issues at stake, and so that they are able to pursue their commitment and take action.
Its academic programs dedicated to the ecological transition have developed significantly since the early 2000s and its academic teams have been leaders in the deployment of hybrid teaching programs and online access to the most advanced contributions and research in this field.
Today, École Polytechnique trains all its students to take into account the complex climatic, economic and social issues, as well as their impact on biodiversity.
The ecological transition is a major challenge for research and innovation in order to continue to enlighten decision-makers and public opinion on the urgency of the choices to be made and the changes to be made, as well as on the scientific advances and their applications to implement it in the best conditions.
Teams from several laboratories, interdisciplinary research centers and chairs at École Polytechnique within the Institut Polytechnique de Paris are directly involved in the associated themes.
As early as 2014, École Polytechnique launched the TREND-X research initiative, which brought together several of its laboratories around a transdisciplinary program for the energy transition. This research project aimed to implement new technologies and practices to reduce the impact of our energy production on the planet. It was intimately linked to the School's academic courses.
In 2019, this transdisciplinary dynamic gave rise to the creation of the interdisciplinary Energy4Climate (E4C) center at Institut Polytechnique de Paris (IP Paris). The center brings together 25 partner laboratories that join forces to conduct research projects to address the climate challenge by bringing together researchers, start-ups and SMEs. The center also aims to offer a unique international pathway and train a new generation of tomorrow's energy leaders. It is leading several training programs at IP Paris and its member schools, which are structured around major areas such as conversion and storage materials and systems, intelligent microgrids and smart-grids.
In addition to this strong position on transdisciplinarity in the service of the climate, École Polytechnique has a number of specific research programs, with areas of application that have a strong impact on the search for solutions to the challenges of sustainable development. This is also the case for the Shool's incubator, the Drahi-X Novation Center, which supports the emergence of breakthrough solutions.
For the past 10 years, École Polytechnique has been committed to progress in order to better take into account the impact of its activity on its territory. To this end, it has developed major assets, such as housing its students on site, thus limiting travel, methanizing the bio-waste from its restaurants, and preserving its living environment in the context of the development of the Saclay plateau.
In June 2019, École Polytechnique committed to a carbon neutrality scenario. It is relying on the development of demonstrators (Bachelor Building, Drahi-X Novation Center, new SIRTA site), on the renewal of its mobility plan, and on an ambitious program to renovate its central complex as well as its infrastructures. Through this neutrality plan, École Polytechnique wishes to put all of its assets at the service of its territory and to initiate a complete transition of its campus, calling on innovation and partnerships with industrialists. This dynamic is driven by the creativity of its researchers, students and start-ups. Its ambition goes beyond the perimeter of its campus, to make a leading contribution to the creation of carbon-neutral urban spaces.
In January 2022, École Polytechnique published its Climate Plan, which presents its contribution to promoting the advent of sustainable prosperity and details its action plan to achieve the goal of a carbon-neutral campus by 2050.
The mobilization of students at École Polytechnique and the Institut Polytechnique de Paris on the challenges of the ecological transition has continued to grow and is embodied in the student association NeXt and the Semaine du Réveil écologique à l'X (SREX) that it organizes every year.
The students of the School are driving forces in building a more sustainable society, notably through field initiatives such as Apicultix (management of beehives at the School and production of honey), Else (local and solidarity-based grocery store) or the Botanical Agricultural Garden.
They are also directly involved in the organization of the Coriolis conference cycle, which focuses on the themes of agro-ecology, resilience, ocean preservation and energy sobriety. Attendance at the conferences is a prerequisite for obtaining the Sustainable Development Certificate.