The normative goal of sustainability requires the long-term preservation of nature, including its functions and services for humans. In the concretization of these norms, the legal framework for sustainability-relevant action plays a major role.

The integrative connection of environmental law with energy law is of great importance for the law professorship and forms the main focus in research and teaching. Natural interfaces of both fields are the law of renewable energies, energy efficiency and sufficiency, and resource conservation.

The Chair of Public Law, in particular Energy and Environmental Law, fits seamlessly into the context of sustainability science. Its working method is already interdisciplinary in its basic approach, and also shows a considerable degree of transfer to the fields of environmental planning, economics and politics. Consequently, the professorship is located in the Institute for Sustainability Management.

In the research projects, interdisciplinary work is carried out in cooperation between lawyers and, among others, environmental scientists, environmental planners and biologists, but also increasingly with experts from the economic sector. The research perspective is increasingly directed towards interdisciplinary sustainability research and is oriented towards the guiding principle of sustainability.

From the traditional fields of environmental law, such as soil protection law, environmental information law, and regional planning law, waste law has increasingly emerged as a research focus in the direction of a circular economy. In addition, legal research in the field of renewable energies plays an important role at the chair.