Alba Vanhaelen speaker at the EC2024
Alba
Vanhaelen
University College Léonard de Vinci
Belgium

Alba holds a degree in Communication Sciences, specialising in socio-cultural activities and lifelong learning, from the IHECS.

She has worked in the cultural sector and in cultural diplomacy. She then joined the world of higher education as Communications and Media Officer at Vinci University College.

From sustainability to transition: how to ensure buy-in from our communities. Focus on two approaches in Belgium & Switzerland (P)

In 2015, four different colleges decide to merge to become Haute Ecole Leonard de Vinci, reasons were multiple including a greater positioning, rationalisation but also and above all, make sure the new entity was greener and better engage into a sustainable transition.

One of the goals was to make sure everyone was feeling part of the new identity in order to produce goods savings (papers, goodies, videos) and mutualisation of services while keeping the same public awareness, the second goal was to make sure all these moves were made with a greater sustainability philosophy.

Communication was key as we had to make sure all participants were foregoing their old legacy as well as some bad habits such as: multiple prints of similar content under each individual id, signaletic, videos, too many intranets, goodies with all logos etc…

The University of Lausanne (UNIL) elected a Vice-Rector in charge of Sustainability in 2011. Since then, a centralized strategy and different projects helped UNIL reduce its global footprint. In 2023, the institution worked with Kate Raworth’s donut concept to identify the gap towards keeping its impact within the planetary boundaries. And the gap remaining is impressive.

How to continue from there? Which sectors have the biggest impact? What actions have to be taken? How to involve the whole community and get their support for the important and sometimes restrictive next steps to take?

This is a Presentation (low to medium interaction) held with Pascale Paschoud, Cédric Focking Schneider and Emmanuelle Dejaiffe and taking place in ROOM F5 (CLE first floor)