The contribution to the EAIR Forum 2023 entitled “Self-Assessment of Environmental Sustainability in Higher Education Ecosystems – Presenting GET-AHED, a New Digital Approach”, by Verena Régent (WPZ Research), Bárbara Gabriel, Cláudia Figueiredo, Robertt Valente (UAveiro) and Ruaidhri Neavyn was accepted for track 2: Sustainability and Higher Education. 

EAIR 45^th Annual Forum 2023: Linz, Austria, hosted by the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria
“Shaping the World of Change – Higher Education as a Key Enabler”
3 to 6 September 2023

Abstract

Many higher education institutions (HEIs) are pursuing greening measures and activities, but few have fully integrated environmental sustainability into their institutional strategies. One way to support the strategic embedding of greening activities is through sustainability self-assessment. Since the early 2000s, sustainability assessment tools for HEIs have emerged and are nowadays numerous and widespread. However, recent studies have found existing tools lack the capacity to assess the entire university spectrum and to facilitate HEIs’ prioritisation of the topic at a strategic level. The EU-funded project GET-AHED aims to support HEIs in this endeavour and focuses on the enhancement of HEIs’ capacity as transformative agents of the green transition by providing them with a comprehensive digital self-assessment tool. Through a meta-study of existing tools accompanied by case studies of pioneering HEIs, GET-AHED will develop a set of relevant and usable sustainability dimensions and indicators, which will be core to the GET-AHED tool.