“UMinho is committed to creating a university leadership strategy at a global level in sustainability, building a healthier, more vibrant, participatory community”, says Dean Rui Vieira de Castro. He adds that higher education institutions have “an additional responsibility” in sustainability, which has been considered “the only solution to global challenges”, according to entities such as the UN, the World Economic Forum and the Business Council for Sustainable Development. For the coordinator of UMinho's candidacy, Paulo Ramísio, the results show that “sustainability is an identity mark of this institution and embraced by all, in an active commitment to a better future”.

In the last year alone, this academy built two buildings for the Innovation Institute for Bio-Sustainability (IB-S), estimated at nine million euros. In addition, it invested 2.8 million euros in research projects on sustainability (47% of the total) and had 715 scientific publications and 59 events on the subject. Within the scope of research projects, the Fibrenamics Green platform, a sustainable innovation initiative, which is being developed by the International Fibrenamics Platform of the University of Minho, in partnership with the Center for the Valorisation of Waste, and which aims to incorporate and recovery of waste from various industries for the development of innovative products.

On the other hand, a quarter of the 6782 subjects offered to almost 20,000 students have content on sustainability and even a transversal curricular unit in this area has been created, which is promoted by the Schools of Economics, Engineering, Sciences and Social Sciences.

UMinho was also the first university in the country to start, in 2010, public reporting of its sustainability indicators. The Annual Sustainability Reports are key documents in this long-term view when identifying the environmental and socio-economic impacts of the institution. For example, the academy is a catalyst for the region, generating a positive annual economic impact of 206 million euros, to which more than 5000 jobs are associated. it values ​​79% of the waste produced and, since 2010, it has spent 80% less paper and 12% total energy. Based on these reports, it was the first European university to align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, the first in the country included in the International Sustainable Campus Network (ISCN) and also joined the United Nations Global Compact initiative.

UMinho is also the strategic partner of the Guimarães Municipality's application for European Green Capital 2020, getting involved in the territory, applying research and integrating the various types of knowledge. A result of this partnership is the Laboratory of Landscape, a pillar in municipal environmental education, which in October was elected “Project of the Month” by ISCN, now the IB-S is a candidate for that title.

 

 

Source: Communication, Information and Image Office of the University of Minho