“Greening” European Education

The European University Association’s new survey gives an overview of how Higher Education Institutions are trying to be more sustainable.

Amongst the participating institutions, 305 have greening measurements in place. The vast majority of institutions (92%) makes use of measures to green the campus physically, like recycling and waste management. Institutions agree that greening is a topic, which must be tackled with partners, in fact, more than 80% of the participants collaborate with student groups, partner institutions, local communities or NGO’s. Moreover, greening is a topic of high interest in learning and teaching. 80% of HEIs include greening in their study programmes (79% on Bachelor level and 82% on Master level). In spite of their best efforts, institutions face major challenges concerning general underfunding (53%), lack of specific funding incentives (46%) and low staff engagement (37%). As a means to overcome these challenges, institutions referred to additional funding from the national and European opportunities. 35% of the survey participants stated, that a European initiative on greening in higher education would be helpful to support the institutions’ activities.

To help education be more sustainable, the European Commission has created a number of initiatives, like the Education for Climate Coalition. It seeks to co-create a participatory education community to support the transformation towards a climate-neutral society, with three main goals. Firstly, to create a community-led by teachers and students with their schools, networks and other educational actors. Secondly, to learn from as many relevant experiences as possible and lastly, to bridge fragmentation between education sectors, stakeholders and people. The Education for Climate Coalition appeals to the whole education community in the EU, across all different education levels and is thus not only aimed at HEIs. Another initiative proposed by the EC is the Council recommendation ‘Environmental sustainability – education and training’, which is set to be adopted in the fourth quarter of 2021. The initiative affects learners at all levels of education and wants to help Member State cooperate and develop stronger policies on education concerning environmental sustainability, climate education, biodiversity and further related topics.

Concerning sustainable HEIs in Switzerland, ETH Zurich ranked first place in the latest comparative study by WWF Switzerland. 28 Swiss higher education institutions were investigated and 10 criteria in terms of strategy, processes, organisation and stakeholders were examined. ETH Zurich reached 89.92 out of 100 possible points. The study assessed that ETH has included sustainability aspects in all relevant areas of the institution for over ten years. They work continuously on the scientific and technical foundations to enable the sustainable development of the society and economy. In total, more than 50% of the investigated institutions are rated “ambitious”, which means that they reached scores between 80-89. The study highlights that a majority of Swiss higher education institutions pursuit sustainability efforts and move in the right, greener and more sustainable direction.

The European and Swiss trend in HEIs is to go towards a more sustainable and greener landscape. A vast majority of examined institutions all across Europe have already implemented measures to achieve climate-neutral goals. The trend shows that more institutions will adapt in the future and hopefully the entire higher education landscape will become greener.