Sustainable action is based on the ethics of responsibility and intergenerational justice. A conversation with Prof. Dr. Inka Bormann about sustainability and ethics in research.

Sustainability is considered one of the central societal challenges today. Why do you believe that questions of sustainability are always also ethical questions?

In my view, questions of sustainability touch on ethical issues because they are closely linked to our responsibility toward living beings of the present and future. Furthermore, questions of justice arise, such as who, when, and where people will be affected by the consequences of unsustainable development today and in the future, and how it can be justified when effective measures for greater sustainability are postponed or not taken at all.

You were a member of the Central Ethics Committee. What are the responsibilities of an ethics committee at a university, and where do these responsibilities intersect with the topic of sustainability?

The role of an ethics committee is to support researchers in conducting their studies in a way that takes fundamental ethical considerations into account. This includes, for example, preventing or minimizing harm to humans, animals, plants, or the environment. Sustainability issues are therefore very much on the agenda. If applicants plan to travel by air to collect data themselves, even though they are collaborating with local researchers, they may receive guidance from the committee members reviewing their applications as to make the data collection process more resource-efficient, that is, more compatible with ecological sustainability.

How can an ethics committee responsibly support researchers when conflicts of interest arise regarding sustainable development?

In such a case, an ethics committee could, through its feedback, encourage researchers to make individual aspects of the study more sustainable. Such questions are already being raised, but as far as I recall, this is not the norm. I can imagine that such recommendations would receive a rather mixed response, as they might be perceived as a restriction on academic freedom.

In your research, you deal with the topic of trust, among other things. What role does trust play in responsible science, especially when it comes to topics such as sustainability and societal transformation?

Research on science communication shows that science and research are perceived as trustworthy particularly when the respective goals of research and the methods of knowledge generation are made transparent, the benefits of research are explained, and it is clear where the funding for research comes from. In the international sustainability discourse, some actors go further and advocate for the so-called Fourth Mission of universities: science is considered responsible when research institutions, together with representatives from politics and business as well as civil society actors, commit to societal change toward greater sustainability. However, opinions differ on whether and how universities can or should achieve this.

Universities increasingly see themselves as places where sustainability is not only researched but also institutionally embedded. What role do governance structures, ethical guidelines, and transparent procedures play in ensuring trustworthy science?

Clearly, there cannot be “one” governance structure that optimally supports the institutional embedding of sustainability at universities. Nevertheless, some factors appear to be conducive to this: These include clear responsibility for sustainability processes, the recognition of sustainability as an urgent challenge to which universities can make an important contribution, a broad understanding of sustainability as a comprehensive university-wide task in teaching, research, and on campus, as well as a willingness to engage in and promote organizational learning and change. This wide range of factors makes it clear that there is no “optimal” state to be achieved, but rather that it is a journey that continues to unfold.

The interview was conducted by Judith Hübner, Katrin Schweigel, and Andreas Wanke.
It first appeared in Freie Universität Berlin’s 2026 Sustainability Report.