SLU news

SLU took the Uppsala County Administrative Board´s sustainability pledge

Published: 02 December 2019
ceremony participators

During the last few months, the Uppsala County Administrative Board has been encouraging important actors in society – the region, municipalities, businesses and various organisations – to take a sustainability pledge to reduce their climate impact. Last Friday, 30 stakeholders in the county took the pledge at a ceremony at Uppsala Castle hosted by the county governor.

The negative impact on the climate needs to be reduced, not only at the global and national level but regionally and locally as well. The Uppsala area faces a number of challenges. Fossil fuels need to be phased out, energy use become more efficient and consumption more conscious. During autumn, the Uppsala County Administrative Board has encouraged local actors such as municipalities, Region Uppsala, the universities, associations and private actors to take a sustainability pledge aimed at reducing their climate impact. Those taking the pledge commit to implementing a number of measures from the county administrative board's regional action plan "Färdplan för ett hållbart län" (Roadmap for a Sustainable County) which lists 21 priority measures. There's been a huge interest - on 22 November, 30 stakeholders took the pledge at a ceremony hosted by County Governor Göran Enander. Signees include all municipalities in the county, and everyone has opted for ambitious objectives for their continued climate-related work.

Erik Fahlbeck, pro vice-chancellor for collaboration and Johanna Sennmark, environmental manager, represented SLU at Uppsala Castle. What exactly does this mean for SLU?

“It’s a step in the right direction for our climate efforts”, says Erik Fahlbeck. “We’re working continually to address climate challenges throughout our operations. We’ve already identified several measures that fit in with the county action plan, and SLU is one of the organisations committing to the highest number of objectives as part of the pledge. The next step is to strengthen our efforts in line with these commitments.“

Some of the actions included in the SLU pledge are to cut the climate impact of non-road mobile machinery by half, fossil-free company cars, continued reduction of the climate impact of business travel and facilitating for staff to walk or cycle to work.

Read about the objectives SLU has committed to as part of the pledge. (in Swedish)

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