HSZG environmental management team presented the "Sustainable Campus Modular System" as a suitable instrument.
A good two years ago, Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences decided to further develop its environmental management system into a sustainability management system. Together with the environmental management team at Dresden University of Technology (TUD), our university's environmental management working group has developed a "Sustainable Campus Modular System" . The "modular system" tool is made up of five components: Framework, Framework Elements, Fields of Action, Building Blocks, Building Block Criteria.
The modular system reflects the specifics of universities (e.g. teaching, research) more clearly than was the case with an environmental management system in accordance with EMAS.
The product was presented to the actual target group for the first time at the final workshop of the project, which took place on 24.11.2016 at the TUD with the participation of our Vice-Rector for Education and International Affairs, Prof. Dr. Heidger, the Chancellor of the TUD, Dr. Handschuh, the project sponsor SMWK (represented by MR H. Jaekel) and representatives of five other Saxon universities. Ms. Kerstin Kräusche, Sustainability Officer at the Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development (HNE), gave a keynote speech as an important source of experience and thus enriched the event in a special way.
The joint HSZG and TUD project team explained the structure and implementation of the "Sustainable Campus" toolkit, which is maintained using an Excel tool. The toolkit is structured in such a way that it takes into account the requirements and key content of management systems according to the High Level Structure (HLS), in particular ISO 14001/EMAS, 50001 and 45001 as well as the university-specific German Sustainability Code (DNK) for sustainability reporting.
This is interesting for Saxon universities because at the meeting of the State Rectors' Conference (LRK) on October 10, 2016, the topic of "Sustainable Campus" was defined as an important development area for universities and colleges by resolution and from 2017, the universities will also be provided with financial resources to implement the "Sustainable Campus" via the initiative budget.
The feedback from other Saxon universities on the modular system was consistently positive. It is seen as a suitable instrument for establishing sustainability management and implementing sustainability reporting. The representative of the Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development praised the modular system as a "...very sophisticated system that goes into depth and breadth. In addition, the educational institutions are given the necessary leeway to map existing and new aspects of their own in sustainability management. All in all, an impressive and great achievement that should be of interest to many higher education institutions. And Eberswalde would like to test the system."
The HSZG's environmental management team will implement the modular system at the university from 2017 and is also planning to transfer the concept to other Saxon universities as part of a consortium project. After the final workshop, two other universities (including the TU Bergakademie Freiberg) spontaneously showed interest in collaborating alongside the HNE.
The HSZG's environmental management team is also a project partner in the nationwide BMBF-funded project "Sustainability at universities: develop - network - report (HochN)", which brings together 10 universities across Germany with the aim of implementing and professionalizing sustainability management and reporting at universities.