Sustainability is not only a trendy word. It is a must. Bringing sustainability in education can happen in different activities. The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) list 17 future prospects and goals that can be covered with and in education on different institutional levels. Caledonia campus hub combines sustainability, campus development and learning landscapes in novel ways.
Education is the most influential change agent for sustainability.
One of our most recent approaches is a study on how to integrate sustainability to campus change processes through participatory service design. This preliminary study tested the integration of certain SDGs (ranging from SDG number 3, Good Health and Well-Being to 17, Partnerships for the Goals) in a participatory campus retrofitting process that was shaped by a professional service designer, Jaana Tarma from London, UK (crastinus.com).
In the analysis, we identified alternative Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of sustainable learning environment creation, and tested these against Sustainable Education Design Criteria. The key findings are nine preliminary alternative KPIs that were coupled with related SDGs. The outcome is presented as a spider diagram (below).
To our knowledge, this kind of an approach has not been undertaken before, and the toolkit that is being produced will be developed further in different contexts. Based on our on-going work regarding campuses and sustainability, we are in the process of developing educational modules to be offered to academic staff, students and others interested.
Embedding sustainability to educational modules requires collaboration that crosses borders.
The modules will be activating and take the form of Journal Clubs, workshops and other collaborative platforms.
We work in close collaboration with Aalto University’s Sustainability Hub. The collaboration has already been launched as a 2-day workshop called ‘Tvättstugan’, and the workshop was coordinated by Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan (Stockholm, Sweden). You can read more about the modules and other activities on our homepage.
Text by Niclas Sandström and Anne Nevgi, Campus Learning and Development Initiatives Hub