Buildings and properties belonging to state-run universities occupy significant parcels of Polish cities. Over one million individuals work or study at these schools. Unfortunately, The UI GreenMetric World University ranking, measuring the attitudes of higher education institutions towards ecology (using categories such as infrastructure, energy and water use, waste segregation and re-use, transportation, research, and education) places Polish academic institutions towards the bottom of the pack.
Our goal was to introduce changes in how these facilities are run and to orient them towards more ecological management. Changes like reducing paper waste, saving water, or using renewable energy, have an incredibly positive influence on the natural environment. We have built a coalition of 60 academic organizations with a goal of promoting these pro-ecological solutions. Members of our coalition were supported by a panel of experts on natural resources management, energy saving support technologies, and proper waste management. We have also organized a training for the coalition members focused on how to take care of the environment through our everyday actions at work, and how to complete the goals of sustainable growth designed by the United Nations. We have conducted workshops for selected leaders from our coalition on how to successfully influence university authorities and how to petition institutions responsible for monitoring the environment. We have supported intervention groups that operated within 11 different academic institutions towards reducing their negative impact on the natural environment. Our support included meetings with experts, lawyers, and NGOs. Simultaneously, we have monitored schools’ reactions to the petitions from our coalition and actions of the intervention groups in real time.
As a result of the monitoring, we have filed 203 notifications and recommendations regarding schools’ regulations. We have discovered that 21 schools did not take environmental criteria into consideration at all when contracting out services, while 88 other schools has no dedicated bureaucratic units responsible for environmental safety and sustainable growth goals. From amongst schools we have reached out to with recommendations, 53 introduced changes, or declared readiness to implement them in the near future.