The EU wants to become a resource-efficient, circular, digitised and climate neutral economy by 2050, where there are no net emissions of greenhouse gases and where economic growth is decoupled from resource use.
However, Europe will only become a climate neutral continent, a resource efficient society and a circular economy with an informed population and workforce that understands how to think and act green. That is to say, there is a strong need to enable a profound change in peoples’ behaviour and skills, starting in the education systems and institutions as catalysts.
The so-called green transition requires an increase in the number of professionals, companies and institutions who work towards a climate-neutral and resource-efficient economy. This is true not only in what concerns green jobs and green organisational practices, but it is also relevant for Education and Training institutions, whose professionals must (a) train and empower the next generation of EU citizens and workforce; (b) generate and transfer knowledge and practices to society in order to solve global environmental and social problems and (c) introduce green and sustainable practices in Education and Training institutions, in order to ensure their green readiness. Education and Training institutions must lead the green transition and act as one the models that the rest of societies are following.
The greening of Education and Training institutions, however, is more than ensuring that buildings meet today’s energy standards or are equipped with the digital infrastructures to face new pedagogical demands. It needs skilled teaching and non-teaching staff members that cooperate towards embedding green and sustainability practices in Education and Training institutions and that lead by example to enable a change in behaviours in the (educational and wider) community.
Education institutions are living communities developing a great number of academic and non-academic activities, and all of them might be done respecting the environment, including those in which the non-members of the institution (i.e., suppliers) are involved. Even more, HEIs are embedded in a complex network of organization and economic and social agents. They must act as academic and training institutions must act as tractors of the rest of the society.
U-GREEN seeks to improve the readiness of Education and Training institutions to tackle the green transition and act as catalysts in promoting behavioural change and in promoting green skills among a new generation of committed European citizens. This will be achieved through the development and implementation of a common framework to assess and update green and sustainability practices, at the same time building the capacities of experts to master the green transition and also promoting the transfer of knowledge through a Virtual Knowledge Hub.
Specific project objectives:
- To foster sustainable Education and Training infrastructures by providing easily adoptable standards on topics such as energy efficiency, water consumption, heating and cooling systems, sustainable food, recycling and waste management, digitalisation practices, as well as how to engage the community;
- To empower Education and Training institutions in acting as catalysts and in promoting behavioural change that supports the green transition among students and the wider community;
- To embed green and sustainability principles in curricula and to promote the development of green skills among a new generation of committed European citizens;
- To raise-awareness on how to adopt green and sustainability principles among teaching and non-teaching staff and to increase the number of HEIs professionals that master more green/sustainable alternatives and strategies;
- To strengthen and implement new cooperation models among Education and Training institutions and to promote the exchange of practices and experiences;
- To reinforce the role of HEIs in generating the knowledge and skills that help society to address common problems, such as climate, environmental and sustainability challenges.