A sustainable UPO

https://www.uniupo.it/en/third-mission/sustainable-upo

We promote the culture of sustainability with an integrated approach and concrete measures to address an important paradigm shift, starting from within. Training, research, and the third mission become tools to tackle the numerous and complex environmental and institutional challenges, and contribute to global socio-economic change.

The adoption of sustainable social, economic and environmental policies is an extraordinary opportunity for innovation, protection and valorisation of local resources, and for this reason we are engaged in actions on various levels that affect all our components: teachers, researchers, technical-administrative-librarian staff, and students.

We are currently committed to all 17 sustainable development goals of the UN Agenda 2030.

We set up our Department for Sustainable Development and Ecological Transition in 2022. (DISSTE); we are working to equip all our courses with skills related to sustainability. The interdisciplinary degree course "Environmental Management and Sustainable Development" is entirely dedicated to the issues of sustainability, in its economic, social and environmental dimensions.

Our sustainability research projects are constantly increasing. Among the many topics currently investigated, we highlight:

  • the use of large quantities of waste material from the food oil industry for the extraction, purification and production of bioactive compounds with high commercial value
  • the development of a new strategy to valorise heterogeneous plastic waste (Plasmix)
  • within the circular economy, the development of a bioeconomy supply chain through the creation of new processes and products, with particular attention to the recovery and reuse of carbon dioxide.

 

RUS

We are members of the Network of Universities for Sustainable Development (RUS). Professor Carmen Aina is the Rector's delegate for relations with the Internet and is president of RUS Piemonte.

It is a coordination initiative promoted by the CRUI between Italian universities, which have pledged to orient their institutional activities towards integrated sustainability objectives and actively participate in their achievement.

 

UPO4Sustainability

Interdepartmental centre

 

The University's policies on sustainability have led to the interdepartmental UPO4Sustainability Centre, established to carry out higher education, research and service activities in the field of economic, environmental, social and cultural sustainability, with reference to individual and collective choices.

The centre, directed by Prof. Enrico Boccaleri, aims to implement and promote the objectives contained in the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development of the United Nations.

 

ESSSR

We are members of the European School of Sustainability Science and Research (ESSSR), an inter-university consortium made up of members who share an interest in sustainability science and sustainable development issues. It focuses its attention on training in this area.

 

UI Green Metric

We have joined the UI GreenMetric World University Ranking, launched by the University of Indonesia in 2010, which aims to evaluate the level of sustainability of 1,050 universities in 85 countries around the world.

The data for 2022 demonstrates a clear rise in our ranking. We went from 748th position in 2020 to 523rd in 2022. It is a significant result of the commitment and policies adopted by the University on environmental sustainability.