Planning Sustainability in Higher Education: Three Case Studies

Abstract

Sustainable development is a key principle of national and international policies, which has been strongly promoted by the European Union since 2015. Communication, education, the awareness of the importance of accelerating the transition from a linear economy to a circular one and of raising environmental awareness play a key role in the achievement of sustainable development goals (SDGs). To achieve the goals on a large scale, it is necessary to start from a local scale. In this sense, universities must experiment best practices and make them available to the society. In the last years, many universities have adopted environmental sustainability plans in order to implement green policies and develop a roadmap towards the achievement of the SDGs, while sharing best practices with university communities and society. This paper presents the case of two Italian universities and a Russian one. Specifically, the paper presents the contents of the current environmental sustainability plans of the Italian universities, discussing the reasons for the choice of the environmental sustainability goals and the expected results following the implementation of the related actions. A comparison between the approaches adopted in the sustainability plans of the two Italian universities will be presented in details. In addition, the paper analyses the potential implementation of a sustainability plan in the Russian university. The paper will discuss also potential criticalities in the achievement of the goals.

Role of EU and non-EU universities in achieving environmental sustainability

“…Two U.S. universities are among the top 10 of the most sustainable universities that indicates a high level of implementation of the sustainable development principles at all levels of university activity: campus landscaping, effective waste management system, rational use of natural resources and high educational and research activity in the field of sustainable development [23]. 9 out of 33 Italian universities entered the top 100 of the rating that also indicates the high activity of universities in implementing the principles of sustainable development.…”

“…That fact demonstrates a high level of development of "green" infrastructure at universities, the effectiveness of the waste management system and the availability of educational programs, courses and research on sustainable development and environmental sustainability. It should be noted that educational and research activities in this area are often conducted in such areas as climate conservation, renewable energy, waste recycling, wastewater treatment and environmental protection [23][24][25][26]. Universities in Italy and the U.S. showed higher results in the UI GreenMetric World University Ranking in comparison to Russian universities.…”

Adoption of Technology Platforms in the Electric Power Industry: New Opportunities

“…The data base of the platform created by the authors on the premises of Ural Federal University contains over 50 proprietary course books, 400 articles and publications, making it possible to radically transform the instruction process by leaving theoretical aspects for self-study and freeing up time for focusing on problem areas and acquiring cross-disciplinary knowledge and competencies. The key services of the science and education platform are access to the knowledge base, publication collaborations [23], formation of breakthrough teams for unique projects, innovation tours, including online, of pioneering companies, design and adjustment of a specialist's personal development trajectory.…”

Critical Analysis of the GreenMetric World University Ranking System: The Issue of Comparability

“…Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have the potential to play a key role in the world's sustainability in a variety of different ways. As a matter of fact, they can heavily impact the environment via greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, indoor and outdoor air pollution, waste, water and soil management and exploitation of natural resources [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. They have the responsibility to educate the world's population about sustainable behaviors and habits to adopt [12][13][14].…”