Environmental objectives

Objective: 1.4

By 2027, 50% of electricity consumed and 95% of energy used for heating is to come from renewable sources, primarily solar. This applies to all properties managed by SLU.

Action plan: Draw up a proposal for investing in a minimum of 3,000m² of solar panels. Division of Real Estate Management prepares the matter for decision. Must be support for the decision from the Vice-Chancellor’s Management Group.

Follow-up: In 2023, we produced fossil-free energy corresponding to 46% of our electricity consumption and 99% of our heating needs. This calculation was done based on all the properties we manage.

Objective: 1.5

By 2027, SLU will have streamlined all energy use (electricity, heating, cooling) by at least 8% per rented m², compared to 2019. This is the equivalent of energy streamlining of at least 1% per rented m² per year, and will not have any detrimental impact on SLU’s operations and tenants.

Action plan: Follows maintenance plan. Transition to LED lighting, improve ventilation, replace windows, etc.

Follow-up: During 2023, energy use in SLU’s properties increased by four per cent per square meter, compared to 2019. Energy use from electricity and heating has reduced by five and eight per cent respectively. However, property area has also decreased by approximately 10 per cent, negatively affecting our target attainment. 

Objective: 1.6

By 2027, SLU and Akademiska hus will save a minimum 15% of energy in the properties SLU rents, based on usage information from 2019. The target includes electricity, heating and cooling and is calculated at kWh per rented m² and will not have any detrimental impact on SLU’s operations and tenants.

Action plan:

Continually: each building and campus must draw up its own list of actions based on saved kWh. Must be updated annually.

New builds: install submeters (electricity). Make environmental silver standard a requirement.

Follow-up: The energy consumption in 2023 was 209 kWh/m², a 9% decrease since 2019.

Objective: 2.6

By 2025, SLU will have reduced its total fossil fuel emissions from air travel by 60%, compared to 2019 per full-time equivalent. This could be the equivalent of a 90% reduction in domestic flights and 50% reduction in international flights.

Action plan: The action plan is divided into three areas: Infrastructure, behaviour and work culture, and air travel emissions. Examples of activities in the action plan: continual collaboration with the travel agency regarding knowledge of environmental impact and alternative routes and modes of transport; communicate travel guidelines and business travel objectives, and follow up on statistics and explore the possibility of purchasing carbon offsets as compensation.

Follow-up: At the end of 2023, SLU had reduced fossil emissions from air travel by 19% per full-time equivalent (FTE) compared to 2019. Fossil emissions from domestic flights schrunk by 73% and from international flights by 6% per full-time equivalent compared to 2019.

Objective 3.6

Follow-up of at least three procurement annually to determine if, and to what extent, the environmental impact has been reduced.

Action plan: Procurement decisions to be followed up are taken by the head of procurement in consultation with the Environment Unit before each financial year.

Follow-up: Three follow-ups were conducted in 2023: 1) tractor, Röbäcksdalen, 2)IT products and 3) helicopter services for oceanographic sampling. The suppliers have produced the requested proof that the requirements are being met. Tractors have not been running on HVO100 fuel. The action plan states that the transition to HVO100 will take place during 2025. 

Objective 3.7

In cases where it is relevant from an environmental risk analysis perspective, environmental requirements must be listed in all procurements.

Action plan: Available in the procedure for collaboration between the Procurement Unit and Environment Unit.

Follow-up: An environmental risk assessment has been conducted for all incoming procurements and specifications during 2023. Following this assessment, environmental requirements could be placed on 15 procurements. It has not been possible or relevant to place environmental requirements on other procurements. Where possible, Proceedo e-commerce system places green leaves next to items that are better from an environmental and climate perspective.

Objective 3.8

Increase the number of call-offs with environmental consideration for focus areas with fixed terms. For 2020-2022, the focus area is domestic hotel nights.

Action plan: Use several methods to spread information about the environmental considerations that can be taken when procuring. If possible, simplify making environmentally friendly choices in different systems. Follow up environmental performance.

Suggested focus areas:

1. purchasing IT products
2. purchasing office materials
3. fuelling stations for SLU vehicles
4. purchasing conference venue facilities.

Follow-up: During 2023, the proportion of fossil-free fuels in relation to the total volume of fuels at station refuelling has increased slightly, from 6.7 per cent in 2022 to 6.9 per cent in 2023. At the same time, the total volume of station refuelling has increased by 21 per cent.

Objective 4.4

To prepare them for the labour market, all SLU graduates should be given a solid base for managing all aspects of sustainability - economic, social and environmental. To achieve this, intermediate objectives have been defined.

Follow-up: See follow-up for interim targets.

Interim target: 4.4.1

Integrate sustainable development to all programmes (100%) by 2025.

Action plan: Programmes review sustainability aspects and ensure that knowledge about sustainable development is anchored in all programmes.

SLU’s training in teaching and learning in higher education includes a module on sustainable development training. Equivalent module offered to all course coordinators. All other SLU teacher training and learning in higher education courses contain elements of sustainable development training.

Follow-up: At the end of 2023, SLU offered a total of 50 degree programmes at Bachelor’s and Master’s level (excluding foundation years). All SLU degree programmes include sustainability aspects as a general component, however, in some syllabuses, these still need to be further concretised and clarified.

In 2023, another 44 course coordinators took part in the training on incorporating sustainable development in teaching (UHU). Since 2015, a total of 508 course coordinators have been accepted to and completed this training. The number of active course coordinators varies from year to year, but we estimate that +/- 90% of course coordinators have taken the training. To this we can add everyone taking SLU’s basic course on teaching in higher education, which includes a shorter module on sustainability in teaching; all teaching courses touch upon this issue.

Interim target: 4.4.2

By 2025, course evaluation reports should score an average of at least 3.5 (of a possible 5.0) in response to questions regarding the extent to which sustainability has been integrated into education.

Action plan: The programmes review sustainability aspects and ensure that knowledge about sustainable development is anchored in all programmes, with previous course evaluations in consideration.

Follow-up: The average course evaluation rating improved somewhat and is now at 4.22 out of 5.

Interim target: 4.4.5

At least 70% of alumni asked will agree that their programme has given them the tools to work with all three aspects of sustainable development in their current professional life, and that they feel they use these tools and contribute to a more sustainable world.

Action plan: Create a method to ask alumni about their careers. Follow-ups should enable identifying the extent to which alumni believe they were been given tools for economic, social and ecological sustainability.

Follow-up every three years: The average score in the 2021 alumni survey was 7.02 on a scale of 1–10. Next follow-up in December 2024.

Objective: 5.4

To further SLU’s contributions to society’s environmental work, one of the university’s general environmental objectives is to increase the use of data generated from SLU’s environmental monitoring and assessment amongst national decision-makers, public authorities, researchers and the general public.

By the end of 2025, at least 90% of participants* in SLU’s quality enhancement activities are expected to openly publish their data, as outlined in the environmental data management quality guide**.

Action plan: The Unit for Data Management Guidance and Development is working actively to support groups with publishing data and description of data by:

1. identifying groups without published data files and/or descriptions on SLU’s open data pages;
2. providing these groups with targeted information about the file publication methods and formats, and maintaining a dialogue with them for compiling sufficient information about publishing data descriptions as per the recommendations on the SLU “open data” page;
3. following up to see whether the groups have published data on the website/project page) and that data descriptions are available on the SLU “open data” pages;
4. the person overseeing the activities sending the data description to the Unit for Data Management Guidance and Development for entry into the SLU open data pages.

The groups assure the quality of the data and ensure that it:

• is available on a page accessible via www.slu.se;
• comes in a machine-readable, ideally open format (CSV or other text format);
• is accompanied by a data description as per the recommendation.

Follow-up: Of all the operations that took part in the quality work, not quite 65% met the requirements by the end of 2023. The adopted action plan is deemed sufficient to reach the objective.

Vision 6

SLU has the vision to be a climate-neutral university by 2027. To achieve this, the following six focus areas have been defined.

Focus area 6.1

All electricity purchased or consumed by SLU to come from fossil-free sources.

Action plan: The energy contract must be clear and state that SLU only purchases fossil-free electricity.

Follow-up: Only fossil-free electricity is purchased in 2023.

Focus area 6.2

All district heating/cooling purchased or consumed by SLU to come from fossil-free sources.

Action plan: Information to those responsible for the agreements. Dialogue with Akademiska hus and power plants to be conducted and documented.

Follow-up: Of the heating/cooling purchased in 2023, 97% was fossil-free.

Focus area 6.3

All SLU-owned vehicles, machinery and tools to run on fossil-free fuel.

Action plan: Some vehicles will be decommissioned, others exchanged for electric, biogas or ethanol-powered vehicles, and the remainder will run on HVO100. The action plans are specific to each vehicle and have not been published externally.

Follow-up: SLU owns 216 vehicles distributed by fuel type as follows: diesel 51%, HVO100 21%, petrol 19%, electricity 8% and other 1%. In 2023, 26% of the fuel used was fossil-free. Converted to CO2 equivalents, this corresponds to 9% of the emissions caused by fuels.

If our research vessel R/V Svea is included, the figures are 13% and 3% respectively. Due to the rise in fuel prices, SLU has opted to grant R/V Svea permission to temporarily use fossil diesel instead of HVO100.

Focus area 6.4

Procurement of goods and services to be clearly characterised by climate awareness.

Action plan: See objective 3 (procurement).

Follow-up: See objective 3. Largely satisfactory results. When relevant, energy consumption must be acknowledged as much as possible for procurement of products, services and buildings. The number of procurements with environmental requirements are affected by the type of procurement in question. SLU operations are broad, and it is not unusual that very specific products are procured. In most cases, there is only one supplier, which affects environmental requirement.

Focus area 6.5

Emissions from business travel to be reduced according to the existing action plan and objectives.

Action plan: See objective 2 (business travel).

Follow-up: See the follow-up of the business travel objective.

Focus area 6.6

Climate compensation.

Action plan: Ongoing project into exploring the practical steps SLU can take to bind carbon, for example using biochar.

Follow-up: Pilot studies have explored what SLU can do to bind carbon dioxide, for example by producing and taking charge of biochar. We are currently investigating whether it is possible to procure an external party to transform manure and vegetation from SLU’s activities into biochar which can then be spread over SLU’s land.

The LTV Faculty currently has no local environmental objectives.

NJ Faculty

S Faculty

VH Faculty

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