The University of Almeria’s latest sustainability action can be described as “preaching by example”. This university holds a leading position in the project titled “University cooperation for promoting the GREEN Transition and sustainable practices in Education and Training”, the U-Green. It is an Erasmus of the European Union, which was launched just two months ago. The U-Green also includes eight other universities from the same number of countries. The UAL underwent a self-analysis to determine its sustainability strategy. This was in order to understand that the project has the specific objective of creating a methodology for implementing environmentally friendly capabilities in all areas of European universities as well as other educational institutions at different levels.
It organized a meeting where representatives of various interest groups discussed the University of Almeria’s strategy and suggested ways to improve it. Three companies of national importance, a group of businessmen, a secondary educational institute, four experts in the field, and four workers from UAL with functions related to sustainable development attended the meeting. It led to a series of conclusions that highlighted the importance of education in environmental management. This was due to the link with companies and the need for a proactive outlook.
Another conclusion from this initial maxim is that visibility is essential. The focus group members, who were not University of Almeria students, said that they didn’t know much about the University of Almeria’s environmental management. They suggested that there needs to be a plan to promote and communicate it, making it visible as an educational institution. There was also talk about “establishing indicators that measure UAL’s implementation of sustainability policies”, “including questions on sustainability in teacher satisfaction surveys” as well as “promoting mobility sustainability as main sustainability strategies”.
U-Green’s general goal is to promote sustainability in European educational institutions and to act as a catalyst for attitudinal changes to improve environmental skills among citizens. It is important to remember that the U-Green project is headed by Jose Joaquin Garcia (professor of Sustainable Development), Eva Alborch (specialist in quality systems and Environmental Sciences), and Eva Carmona (dean of the Faculty of Economic and Business Sciences).
