During our Sustainability Week Zurich in April, we help 60+ student/student groups organise their own event. Many of these are created by first-timers. Their only qualification: Interest in sustainability. 

But how does it work? How do first-timers end up organising events successfully? Aren't there too many moving parts? 

This is why we have a launchpad. It is called the Sustainability Event-Creation Party. These are a place to brainstorm any early ideas, develop new ideas and flesh out the details with some games & Apéro. These are evening events with a simple goal: Turning ideas into doable events. After all, feasibility matters!

Earlier, these were called Kickoff events, before they are rebranded into our new name. Together, we had 6 of these events in 2025-6 covering all the major campuses in Zurich. These ideas then become applications for event proposals submitted to us in January.

Let's hear from some participants about their experiences:

1. Christopher Cohnen 

Christopher Cohnen studies Computer Science at ETH. Christopher participated in our Event-Creation Party at ZHAW, the Europaallee Edition in December. He says, "I mainly enjoyed seeing how we came up with so many ideas during such a short time. Especially the game we played was super helpful. The game was about forming groups of 4, and coming up with 10 new ideas in 10 minutes, each with a 60 second clock and then filtering out the best ideas in the next rounds.

When we try to find ideas in other settings, we just sit together collecting ideas and everyone already thinks about the feasibility in their heads without ever saying anything. But brainstorming ideas with a game allowed us to imagine small ideas and improve them together to create something that we could actually organise. And it made it super funny, because it was so fast and we had to say what was on our mind and were laughing half the time. And obviously, your Lead Team was also very nice and including, which made all of it easier."

2. Szonja Kéri

Szonja Kéri studies Sociology at UZH. Szonja is part of the Lead Team of NHWZ, but our Lead Team members also become part of the groups during the brainstorming games just like anyone else. Szonja attended the PHZH Edition of the Event Creation Party in January. She says, "I liked participating in the event creation party, because I was able to see my teammates again and discuss our favourite sustainability topics in person.

When I attend these events, I always get so inspired. Hearing other people's ideas makes my brain go crazy. Every time I go, I feel like I have no idea what event to possibly plan. Then, I leave the place with the motivation to hold at least 5 events and I keep thinking about them for a long time. For me, these events are great to connect with other sustainability minded people and to get inspired and motivated to organise something!"

3. Tobias Fleisch

Tobias studies Biodiversity at UZH. He already came in with an event idea and wanted to get feedback from others and brainstorm some details. This was at our ETH-UZH Zentrum Edition of the Event Creation Party in January, also our last one before we move onto the next steps leading up to the Week. About his experience, Tobias says, "It was great fun! We were quite a diverse group with different interests, we had many ideas that we could discuss together. In the end it helped flesh out project ideas, it was good to get some input from people with different backgrounds."

To add to what Christopher, Szonja and Tobias said, here are a few pictures:

Many ideas that came out of these sessions have been submitted as event-proposals as our deadline closed in January. As next steps, the selected events become part of the main program. Thanks for contributing to the event-creation parties and making them a big success! Stay tuned with our SWeek Blog to see what else we have in store!

Photo credits: Christopher Cohnen, Szonja Kéri, Leah Michelsen, Jan Mantsch, Christiane Mayer

Blog curation: Ashoka Vardhan Manchala

Did you know that you don't have to only be an event organiser to be part of the Week? You can also be a volunteer. As volunteer, you can be a photographer, staff our info desk, build our tent and many more. You can register here.

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