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, eveliina.asikainen@tamk.fiwww.tamk.fi/

• Environmental coordinator Saana Raatikainen, saana.raatikainen@uta.fiwww.uta.fi/sustainability

• #Tampere3