Integration of Sustainability into Universities - Good Practices and Benchmarking for Integration

Diploma Thesis from the year 2004 in the subject Sociology - Work, Education, Organisation, grade: 1,0, University of Graz (Institut für Geographie und Raumforschung), language: English, abstract: The number of charters and declarations, promoting sustainability in education is increasing with the number of universities integrating sustainability. For many universities, those declarations are self commitments and are used to improve public relations. Although they may have further implications, declarations can be a strong policy statement. Over 300 European universities have signed the Copernicus Charta and in the same moment, they sign a commitment for sustainable development. This shows that sustainability became an important issue. Universities can use the Charta to raise awareness among staff and convince them that they should act and demonstrate universities' role and impact on society. Universities impact society by their four roles.
. Education: Universities train and influence future decision makers
. Research: University research influences daily life
. Administration/Management: Universities are large employers and consume all kinds of resources
. Role in Society/Outreach: Universities have a direct (regional development, actor in society) and indirect (education, research, administration) influence on societal development and especially the surrounding and environment.
By fulfilling their role and obligations, universities can contribute to a sustainable development for the society and the university itself. Good examples of each of those responsibilities offer universities ideas about what they can do. Of course good practices must be adapted to their own structure. To gain insight to the processes and the activities of other "sustainable" universities, universities can participate in the COPERNICUS University Core Group. Within this group, universities can benchmark themselves with others and can get a better understanding about the structure and proceedings of sustainability by learning about good practices and processes of other universities in other countries.
Integrating sustainability offers a new challenge for universities of which they can only succeed - Succeed in social well-being, ecological quality and economic prosperity.