Sustainability report of the European large geotechnical institutes platform

The European Large Geotechnical Institutes Platform (ELGIP) is a group of 15 leading research organizations in geotechnical engineering that aims to promote internationally the profession and its societal relevance. One of ELGIP's objectives is to drive sustainability in geotechnical engineering and establish a common platform for sustainable practices and knowledge transfer across national borders in Europe through its working group on Sustainability. This paper summarizes the latest efforts of ELGIP's Sustainability working group (WGS), with contributions from ten national organizations in Europe. The current practice in geotechnical engineering is evaluated both qualitatively, by highlighting selected projects with significant components related to sustainability within WGS, and quantitatively, by presenting the level of involvement of the partner institutes in relation to each specific sustainable development goal (SDG) of UN’s 2030 Agenda. Finally, general recommendations with respect to the future development of current practice are made based on the outcome of the evaluation. The paper demonstrates the important role that geotechnical engineering can play in achieving sustainable development goals.