EUA pushes roadmap for universities and sustainability

The European University Association (EUA) has been preparing higher education institutions for increased sustainability requirements as governments implement new commitments made at the COP28 UN Climate Change Conference, staged in December in Dubai.

It has been encouraging its 850 members, including 34 national rectors’ conferences, to follow its new EUA ‘Green Deal roadmap for universities’, which outlined policies and actions which can help universities follow a climate-neutral, environmentally sustainable and socially equitable path.

The aim is to help higher education institutions follow the principles outlined in the European Union ‘Green Deal’ umbrella strategy, which has fostered a wide range of EU guidelines and laws, including on waste reduction, renewable energy and building standards.

“The roadmap should serve as an inspiration and template for how universities can face the climate and environmental challenge over an extensive timeframe, enabling them to make both an effective contribution and serve as exemplars of sustainable communities,” said an EUA note.

An EU webinar supporting this strategy, staged on 4 December, was told how universities need to take account of local conditions in their institutions and communities when framing their sustainability policies. But it is also important to generate good practice that can be replicated across multiple institutions.

Stephane Berghmans, EUA director of research and innovation, highlighted the range and complexity of sustainability policies in higher education.

These include: boosting collaboration on the topic with other universities (including mutual learning between universities in counties with different levels of economic development); boosting training to deepen the interface between science and sustainability policy; ensuring sustainability skills are valued in career advancement; robust governance of interdisciplinary programmes; and noting that expanding institution sizes and their campuses can have an environmental and social impact on surrounding communities.

Discussions were moderated by Dr Douglas Halliday, senior lecturer in the physics department at the United Kingdom’s Durham University and chair of EUA Green Deal task-and-finish group. He said of the roadmap: “Every university is at a different starting point based on the experience they've had based on where they are in terms of thinking about things in this document.”

He also stressed the diversity of considerations, from energy and water to health, well-being, and the development of just and equitable societies. Universities must “think about the sort of societies they want to build in the future but while recognising the importance of heritage and culture”, said Halliday.

María Sarabia Alegría, vice rector for institutional relations and coordination of the Universidad de Alcalá, Spain, and executive secretary of the sectorial commission for sustainability for Spanish rector association CRUE (Conferencia de Rectores de las Universidades Españolas), explained how her university tried to integrate its services within its historic home city Alcalá de Henares, north-east of Madrid.

She emphasised the link between the university and the city centre, together a UNESCO historic site with the institution hosting arts and cultural events in its central campus, where it teaches arts, architecture, law and social science courses.

The university’s garden, important for biological science teaching, has been recognised as an international CITES convention site promoting conservation.

Meanwhile, the university has been developing a high-energy trigeneration plant delivering 462kW in the university’s Polytechnic School, reducing heating and cooling costs. And in 2023 it invested €4 million (US$4.42 million) on solar panels delivering 5GW hours per year in renewable energy.

Reinhilde Veugelers, economics professor at KU Leuven, a Catholic research university in Belgium, and a senior fellow at Brussels-based think tank Bruegel, welcomed such targeted initiatives, but stressed the importance of universities also maintaining free-flow research, driven by innovative academics.

While governments are seeking “quick and easy solutions to implement that are ready to use” regarding sustainability technology, she argued “that we should still also support the right environment for bottom-up proposals that … could be the next generation breakthrough technologies”.

She also underlined the importance of HE teaching students skills on operating clean technologies, “and that includes the retraining of skill sets”, sometimes through public private partnerships.

“That will be very important because these are the skills that are needed by society to get to a transition [to a sustainable future],” she said.

Dr Halliday said this reflected how universities needed to link their teaching and research policies, to boost sustainable development: “There are many overlaps between research development and education of students that's part of the … environment that universities have to offer to students ….”

The roadmap

The roadmap has four broad policy areas.

The first is research and innovation, where universities are encouraged to use technological development to help the EU meet its Green Deal-linked 2050 net zero emissions target. The paper highlights concern about the restrictions imposed by EU research programme Horizon Europe, which while it has a EUR95.5 billion budget, requires the development of consortia to source money via a competitive bidding process.

Funding calls can be for narrow topics, and the EUA is keen that universities take a broader view regarding sustainability technology.

“This leaves open questions as to what else could have been tried if there was more openness to risk and failure and new approaches favouring systemic change,” said the paper.

The second policy focus is on the need to comply with a key proposed Green Deal law, the Net Zero Act. That will authorise actions such as the EU creating dedicated environmental training programmes through ‘Net-Zero Academies’, with the paper addressing the need for universities to focus on education and students to deliver on sustainability goals.

“Education for sustainable development should be available to all staff and students, with different modules allowing them to understand governance and decision-making processes, socio-cultural phenomena, and economic systems,” stated the paper.

The paper also concentrates on staff and operations, where practical Green Deal legislative reforms can have a real impact, such as the latest EU renewable energy directive promoting green electricity and municipal-packaging waste reduction and recycling targets.

Here, the EUA has stressed universities should tackle building stock and green space management; food supply and canteens; and procurement, highlighting how initiatives such as the Green Office Movement can make a difference.

Potential reductions in high-carbon staff travel could come from codes of conduct guiding staff in choosing lower-emission alternatives; and reforms can make laboratory research more sustainable, it added, for instance via the Irish Green Labs initiative.

Finally, a public engagement and societal impact strand within the plan takes a longer-term look, advising that Green Deal assumptions may change in future.

For instance, digital technologies usually aid sustainability in economies and societies may change as their potential downside becomes apparent (perhaps by increasing emissions).

One key step for universities, including outside their institutions, is to “develop stronger links with alumni as part of a joint commitment to amplify the social impact of the university”, said the paper. Their experience can be tapped to pursue new initiatives, for instance working with “groups and individuals affected by climate and environmental issues”, said the paper.

Eoghan Kinirons, policy officer for strategy, policy coordination and urban transitions at the European Commission directorate-general for research and innovation (DG RTD) welcomed the EUA work, noting that when the Green Deal policy was launched in 2020, “higher education was not in the spotlight”. He said: “The emphasis could have been placed stronger on the role that their sector could have play.”

But since then, detailed programmes and policies linked to the Green Deal have brought universities and colleges into the process. That includes the Built4People partnership, which will channel EUR380 million in EU funding to innovation in the building sector, which could be tapped by sustainable universities.

The same applies to the New European Bauhaus initiative, which released a €50 million call for proposals in October 2022 for innovative design, that could integrate sustainability into the built environment.

Dr Halliday concluded that while such initiatives could be used by European universities to boost their own sustainability, these innovations reflect good practice to the rest of the world. “It has not just national but European and global implications,” he told the webinar.