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Is There a Place for Resilience Within Sustainable University Transition Management?

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Handbook of Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development in Higher Education

Part of the book series: World Sustainability Series ((WSUSE))

Abstract

The implementation of sustainability standards in university campuses is a global trend. Yet, very few institutions are leading the way after systemic perspectives for campus sustainability, being often stuck in technocratic targets set around the regnant energy efficiency paradigms. This paper builds on a broader definition of what being a “Sustainable University” should mean, integrating four propeller blades for a sustainable transition: (i) the built-environment quality improvement, (ii) the civil society engagement (iii) the industry partners’ involvement and (iv) the public institutions support and collaboration in policies implementation. The paper aims at highlighting how resilience thinking could boost such holistic definition and its operationalisation. After un-packing the resilience metaphor through different management approaches in universities, sustainability strategies implemented in different case studies (in Italy, Mexico, the UK and Japan) are collected via focus groups and stakeholders interviews, and then framed along an integrated sustainability-resilience approach from literature reviews and innovative proposals.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    EU FP7 Marie Curie IRSES Grant Agreement Number: PIRSES‐GA‐2010‐269161. UNI-Metrics: Value Metrics and Policies for Sustainable University Campus.

  2. 2.

    Politoward is a project for the internationalization of research funded by Compagnia di San Paolo: www.politoward.org.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Interuniversity Department of Regional and Urban Studies and Planning, Politecnico Di Torino and Università Di Torino, Viale Mattioli, 39, 10125, Turin, Italy

    Giulia Sonetti & Patrizia Lombardi

  2. Urban Studies Unit, Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI), Viale F. Crispi 7, 67100, L’Aquila, Italy

    Lorenzo Chelleri

Authors
  1. Giulia Sonetti
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  2. Patrizia Lombardi
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  3. Lorenzo Chelleri
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Giulia Sonetti .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. FTZ-ALS, HAW Hamburg , Hamburg, Germany

    Walter Leal Filho

  2. Department of Biology & CESAM, University of Aveiro , Aveiro, Portugal

    Ulisses M. Azeiteiro

  3. DCSG, CEF, Universidade de Coimbra and Universidade Aberta, PT, Porto, Portugal

    Fátima Alves

  4. Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, United Kingdom

    Petra Molthan-Hill

Appendix

Appendix

See Table 2, Figs. 4 and 5.

Table 2 Green Metrics Chart ordered per Total Score in Italy, 2015. Highlighted in yellow, the average scores; in green, the highest score per column
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Fig. 4
figure 4

Green Metric Ranking for 2015 ordered per ascendant Total Average Score (blue stack) per Country

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Fig. 5
figure 5

Green Metric Ranking for 2015 ordered per ascendant Average_Energy and Climate Change (green stack) per Country

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Sonetti, G., Lombardi, P., Chelleri, L. (2017). Is There a Place for Resilience Within Sustainable University Transition Management?. In: Leal Filho, W., Azeiteiro, U., Alves, F., Molthan-Hill, P. (eds) Handbook of Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development in Higher Education. World Sustainability Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47877-7_21

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