The Sustainability Weekend Retreat is where we develop the theme for the upcoming Sustainability Week and start preparations. The Weekend Retreat blends sustainability sessions along with fun activities. Like every year, we spent the weekend in the Fällanden Youth Hostel by the Greifensee in Kanton Zürich.

Friday began with informal getting to know each other, dinner and some card games. Dinner has been prepared by Javi, Lead Team member with assistance from Lina and Marco. Many others especially newcomers have jumped in and helped throughout the weekend for preparing breakfast, lunch and dinner. Such a sense of community feeling is what makes the Weekend Retreat & the Verein special and personal.

We woke up to a beautiful and sunny Saturday! After breakfast, we began with some presentations by the Lead Team members to introduce the Verein / Association to those who were new. Ashoka presented on the history of the Sustainability Week Zurich from 2013, how it began at UZH with help from ETH, eventually becoming a 5-university Verein receiving Europe-wide recognition. Jimmy introduced the current structure of the Verein. Jan introduced relevant concepts like donut economy, SDGs and theories related to climate change and sustainability.

We then stepped out into the lovely October weather to enjoy the sun and continue with the next activitiy: Sustainability Theatre. After an introduction game where we got to know each other properly, we divided into three groups. Each group had 20 minutes to prepare a 2-minute play about a creative event organised about sustainability. This is a snippet of the Sustainability Week in April which hosts more than 60 such events organised by students. 

The three plays packed intriguing content and a lot of laughs within a very short time. The Glacier Trip play was about raising awareness about melting glaciers with some people playing a train and a glacier too. The DIY Workshop play showed a workshop on seed varieites which can easily done in one's home, with one person playing the seed expert. The Repair Café play was about a place which repairs clothes and reuses hard bread. This included the Café owner dramatically saving a fictional bread being thrown in trash and serving a good dish in the end.

Preparation

Play 1: Glacier Trip

Play 2: DIY Seed Workshop

Play 3: Repair Café

After the Sustainability Theatre, it was time for lunch. Lunch was prepared by the very well-planned efforts of Javi, Marco, assisted by others who sprung in whenever they could. After a delicious meal of tortillas, we spent the next hours of the afternoon oustide playing outoor games. Some played table tennis, spikeball / roundnet, table football, others went rowing on the beautiful Greifensee, some others just rested on the lawn chatting and letting the afternoon gracefully pass by. 

The crown event of the late afternoon was the poster making competition. We divided into three new groups, each coming up with their own poster for the next Sustainability Week 2026. Goal: A title, a theme and a drawing that goes with it.

One group came up with the theme “Bubbles Pop”. They chose to point out how each bubble that we are in, be it economic or social, are going to burst at some point and climate change will worsen them. Another group made the title “Time to Choose” pointing to two routes that can be chosen in the coming years, one with positive and another with negative consequences. The third group decided on the theme “Sharing the Future” which addresses ecoanxiety by talking about hope by sharing and talking about how we can best share an equitable future. 

The presentations round was filled with energy as each group explained their posters and themes with great enthusiasm, putting forward why their theme & poster would be the best fit for the next year. One of these will be the final poster for 2026. (Do you have a favourite theme among these or another idea? Write to us an email.)

"Bubbles Pop" Group

"Time to Choose" Group

"Sharing the Future" Group

After the poster making session, we only left with the closing activities of the evening. A lovely dinner made yet again by Lead Team's Javi, Marco and others was awaiting us in the meantime. 

The concluding activities of the evening were workshops suggested by the attendees of the Weekend Retreat themselves: (1). Charleston Dance / Swing Dance led by Ting Tang. Swing Dance, historically from the United States includes improvisation and movements meant to work with one's own comfort and pace. Ting's workshop got everyone trying it for the first time to some beautiful music. (2). Friendship Bracelet Workshop led by Tia Mayer. Even though they look complicated, Tia taught us how friendship bracelets are indeed simple and could be made from just 6 threads. This involves braiding the threads on a table with a specific pattern with thread colours of one's choice, resulting in beautiful handmade bracelets in the end. 

On the final day on Sunday morning, it was time for a wrap-up session and a hike across the Zürcher Oberland near Fällanden. We walked along some meadows, through a forest and across some streams in the morning, a perfect activity before officially closing the weekend. We then returned to the hostel, said goodybe to the Fällanden Youth Hostel leaving it as we found it and headed back from Greifensee.

Thanks to everyone who made it a very memorable and eventful Sustainability Weekend Retreat! The Sustainability Weekend is meant for sharing moments together and celebrating community. If the entire weekend could all be put in one word, it would indeed be "community". Thanks for being part of it, continuing to shape it and giving more life to it. This is what Sustainability Week Zurich / Nachhaltigkeitswoche Zürich is about. 

Blogpost by Ashoka Vardhan Manchala (UZH)
Photo credits: Ashoka Vardhan Manchala (UZH), Jimmy Weber (UZH & ETH), Marco Hoffmann (ETH) & Jan Mantsch (ETH).

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