News: Dec 13, 2019
The new report “Environmental Management for Universities – From Policy to Practice” gathers examples of experiences from the implementation of environmental management systems in two Portuguese universities. The report is a short guide to how an environmental management system can be implemented at a university. The experiences will be used in the Erasmus+ funded project Change the Climate, which aim to increase Latin-American Universities contribution to Sustainable Development.
From March 2017 to October 2018, the University of Gothenburg guided the University Institute of Lisbon and the University of Aveiro in Portugal, through the systematic implementation of an environmental management system at their own institutions. The overall goal was to reduce negative environmental impact from operations and strengthening sustainable development in their core activities.
The University of Gothenburg used the experiences of its own implementation of an environmental management system in addition to the requirements of ISO14001.
When the project was completed the University Institute of Lisbon achieved its ISO 14001 certificate. The University of Aveiro has performed internal audits at all schools and is planning for the certification audit.
The project sought answers to the following questions:
• What are the challenges of introducing an environmental management system in a higher
education institution?
• What progress was made during the process?
• How does the environmental management system relate to sustainable development?
The project was coordinated by the Columbus Association, which supported the project through its web platform, thus enabling distance meetings and shared documentation.
The experiences from the project was presented in the report “Environmental Management for Universities – From Policy to Practice”
The report will be used in the Erasmus+ funded project Change the Climate: Assuring the Quality of Environmental Strategies in Latin America Higher Education Institutions. The main goal of this project is to increase Latin-American Universities contribution to Sustainable Development, through the implementation of environmental systematic practices and quality processes in alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Download the full report: “Environmental Management for Universities – From Policy to Practice” (pdf)
Author: Ullika Lundgren, Sustainability Controller at the University of Gothenburg and Project leader for the University of Gothenburg in the Capacity Building Project: Change the Climate - Assuring the Quality of Environmental Strategies in Latin America Higher Education Institutions.
Contact: ullika@gu.se
