Unipoli Green - Four Universities Working Together for Sustainability Eveliina Asikainen & Saana Raatikainen with Sannamari Hellman, Lotta Parjanen and Marjut Schroderus
Unipoli Green - Four Universities Working Together for
SustainabilityEveliina Asikainen & Saana Raatikainen
with
Sannamari Hellman, Lotta Parjanen and Marjut Schroderus
Sustainable Development in Finland• Finland is one of the world´s leading countries in promoting sustainable
development • Finnish National Commission on SD is chaired by the Prime Minister since
the 1990´s• Promotes, monitors and evaluates the implementation of the global 2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development and integrates it as part of national sustainable development efforts
• Society´s Commitment to Sustainable Development was launched in 2014• Finnish way of committing different stakeholders in society to promoting SD
• The SD challenges in Finland are social segregation, unemployment, insufficient actions to prevent climate change and overuse of natural resources
Higher Education in Tampere
• University of Tampere
• Tampere University of Applied Sciences
• Tampere University of Technology
• Police University College
• Altogether about 36 000 students and 5000 staff members
SD in Finnish Universities
• Universities in Finland have great autonomy even though they are mostly financed by the Ministry of Education and Culture
• Universities are expected to be the forerunners of the society and expectations for promoting sustainable development are rising but the resources for sustainability work are still scarce
• Competition between higher education institutes -> does not easily encourage co-operation
• Finnish Higher Education Forum on Sustainability -> network that enables sharing information and experiences
Independent development vs. co-operation
• Co-operation of HEIs in SD is rarely reported
• Possible reasons based on our experiences• Looking too far – it took almost 20 years SD work in each university before
systematic co-operation started
• "All wisdom lies in University – no need for co-operation"
• Resources allocated to SD and attitudes towards SD vary
Sustainability profiles of the HEIsUTA TUT TAMK Police University College
Origin in student activismon environmental impacts1996
Started by active lecturer1996
Bachelor Programme in EnvironmentalEngineering 2003
Managemment´s interest2014
Full time coordinator in facilities management
Environmental specialistin facilities management no resource for SD
Working group for SD leadby a lectruer, real estatemanagement coordinates
No special resources in SD
In curricula emphasis on social sustainability
In curricula emphasis on ecological & economicsustainability
ESD part of buildingprofessional identity
Social sustainability and justice emphasised in curriculum
Fair Trade University, strong cooperation withreal estate owners
Cooperation withreaestate owners, newBREEAM certified building
Energy-Efficiencycommitment
Real Estate ownercommitted
UnipoliGreen at work• Meetings of environmental coordinators and/or chairs of
sustainability working groups• Support, peer group, brain storming• Different backgrounds of the group members help in building firmer
understanding of SD
• E-mails, distributing initiatives and news
• Meeting top management – lobbying ideas
• Lobbying the national authorities –arranging a national meeting of SD coordinators
• Arranging events collectively
Achievements
1) Awareness raising – enables better visibility and reaches more students
2) Sharing information and influencing management – puts more weight on co-operation
3) Curriculum development – promotes multidisciplinarity
• SD courses have been mapped in three universities• Joint Multidisciplinary Sustainable Development
Study Module
Challenges
• To secure that SD targets are included in the strategy in the middle of the big organizational and cultural change
• To bring strategic SD commitment into resources
• To get clear mandate from top management and commitment from whole university community
• To bring existing skills and expertise into different levels of organization
• To secure continuity
Conclusions
• Meeting peers gives possibilities for testing, reflecting and being credited
• Keeping SD on the agenda in a change process
• Inter-institutional networking speeds up adoption of new, more sustainable practices, which is the ultimate mission of promoting SD
Thank your for your attention!Contact information
• Senior Lecturer Eveliina Asikainen, [email protected]/
• Environmental coordinator Saana Raatikainen, [email protected]/sustainability
• #Tampere3