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City of St.Gallen and University of St.Gallen become Blue Communities

From left: Peter Jans, city councillor, representative of the City of St.Gallen; Sybille Minder Hochreutener, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Applied Sciences; Prof. Dr. Thomas Dyllick, Professor of Management with special focus on Sustainability Management; and Stefanie Graf, Leader of the Rectorate Staff Unit of the University of Teacher Education
From left: Peter Jans, city councillor, representative of the City of St.Gallen; Sybille Minder Hochreutener, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Applied Sciences; Prof. Dr. Thomas Dyllick, Professor of Management with special focus on Sustainability Management; and Stefanie Graf, Leader of the Rectorate Staff Unit of the University of Teacher Education

The Blue Planet Project congratulates the City of St.Gallen in Switzerland for becoming the latest community to join the Blue Communities Project. More than 300 people were present at the ceremony in St. Gallen on September 24 where city councillor Peter Jans unveiled the certificate announcing that St.Gallen had achieved the designation of Blue Community by:


  1. Recognising the right to water as a human right;


  2. Promoting the use of tap water from public infrastructure by ensuring that municipal facilities and services offer water from public taps wherever possible;


  3. Managing water responsibly;


  4. Promoting publicly financed, owned, and operated water and wastewater services;


  5. Cultivating public–public partnerships with international partners and advocating the right to water at the international level.

The Blue Planet also applauds the University of St.Gallen for becoming the third Blue University after the University of Bern, Switzerland and the University of Lavras in Brazil. Blue Universities are committed to promoting research on water issues from a public interest perspective to counter the growing trend of corporate sponsorships promoting private interests in academia.