The general guiding theme and vision of the new Empa Laboratory of Sustainability Robotics is to develop novel soft robotic systems for infrastructure maintenance and environmental monitoring. The main research method of the lab is Physical Artificial Intelligence (PAI). The work uses a bio-inspired robot development methodology and focuses on integrating advanced materials with machine-learning-based controllers and multi-sensor perception. The lab is based on an institutional partnership between Imperial College London and the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa) and is now jointly run between Empa and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL).  Research thrusts include aerial robotics platform development, soft robotics, material science and digital infrastructure systems. Amonth others the lab  benefits from advanced facilities in robot manufacturing and testing, including the NEST experimental robot testing space at Empa and the DroneHub.