Abstract
In 2011 KTH Royal Institute of Technology started several new sustainable development initiatives. This paper will report on the journey. An Environmental Management System for the entire university has been established and KTH became ISO 14001 certified during 2015. The system includes operations but also education, research and collaboration. In this way we ensure that sustainability goals are integrated in the management system and that improvements are required continuously. For education an aim is that all educational programs should be able to report how they have integrated sustainability. The activities are focused on two complementary approaches: evaluation of the program’s work and providing tools and support for teaching staff and program directors. Preliminary results from the on-going evaluation indicate that progress has been made in several programs, but there is still room for improvements. For research, several bibliometric and external funding indicators show progress. During the winter of 2015 an evaluation was conducted and based on this it was decided that the activities should continue. A new policy for sustainable development as well as new sustainable development goals were decided during 2015.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Dahlin, J. -E., Larsson, P., & Erlich, C. (2013, September 22–25). The use of board games in the engineering education for the purpose of stimulating peer participation in lecture theatre discussions. In Proceedings of Engineering Education for Sustainable Development. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University.
Disterheft, A., Caeiro, S., Azeiteiro, U. M., & Filho, W. L. (2015). Sustainable universities: A study of critical success factors for participatory approaches. Journal of Cleaner Production, 106, 11–21.
Finnveden, G., & Strömberg, E. (2013, September 22–25). Developing sustainability learning outcomes for engineering. In Proceedings of Engineering Education for Sustainable Development, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University.
Holmberg, J., Lindbäck, C., & Robinson, J. (2015). Evaluation of KTH sustainability: Report from the external evaluation panel. Stockholm: KTH.
Holmberg, J., Lundqvist, U., Svanström, M., & Arehag, M. (2012). The university and transformations towards sustainability. The strategy used at Chalmers University of Technology. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 13, 219–231.
KTH. (2010). Revision av policy och handlingsplan för miljö och hållbar utveckling. Rapport 101117 (in Swedish).
KTH. (2012). Education Assessment Exercise (EAE) 2011. Evaluation for quality development at KTH—A project summary.
Lozano, R., Ceulemans, K., Alonso-Almeida, M., Huisingh, D., Lozano, R., Waas, T., et al. (2015). A review of commitment and implementation of sustainable development in higher education: results from a world-wide survey. Journal of Cleaner Production, 108(part A), 1–18.
Marcus, J., Coops, N. C., Ellis, S., & Robinson, J. (2015). Embedding sustainability learning pathways across the university. Current Opinions in Environmental Sustainability, 16, 7–13.
Ramos, T. B., Caeiro, S., van Hoof, B., Lozano, R., Huisingh, D., & Ceulemans, K. (2015). Experiences from the implementation of sustainable development in higher education institutions: Environmental management for sustainable universities. Journal of Cleaner Production, 106, 3–10.
UN. (2015). Transforming our world. The 2030 agenda for sustainable development. United Nations.
Wiek, A., Withycombe, L., & Redman, C. H. (2011). Key competencies in sustainability: A reference framework for academic program development. Sustainability Science, 6, 203–218.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Finnveden, G., Egan, ED., Sandberg, T., Strömberg, E. (2017). A Holistic Approach for Integration of Sustainable Development in Education, Research, Collaboration and Operations. In: Leal Filho, W., Skanavis, C., do Paço, A., Rogers, J., Kuznetsova, O., Castro, P. (eds) Handbook of Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development in Higher Education. World Sustainability Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47889-0_21
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47889-0_21
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-47888-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-47889-0
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)