In recent decades, Sustainability has been a constant concern and a priority for the industrial sector, due to the negative impacts that emissions and different types of waste represents for the environment and its preservation.

Although the industry has a considerable contribution to the evolution of this problem, this sector is essential for the production of products and goods, as well as for the promotion of employment and for the economic development.

As such, in addition to applying demanding environmental regulations, it is crucial that the industry think of ways to reduce the impacts that these emissions and wastes represent for environmental development.

Thus, there is a combination between the LEAN concept, which corresponds to the implementation of management tools and continuous improvement, and the GREEN concept, which is associated with sustainable practices and processes incorporated in environmental management systems (Vasconcelos et.al., 2013).

We are committed to reducing our carbon footprint to guide our choices in procurement, policies and processes. In 2025, Omnia will be carbon neutral and Omnia’s energy self-sufficiency rate will have increased significantly.

Omnia promotes citizens’ participation, skills and well-being and increases the vitality of municipalities, communities and businesses in the region. Omnia is a large and modern education provider offering a wide range of services with a focus on supporting lifelong learning. Our operations are guided by the changing needs of the future.

Every student in vocational education in Finland has to do one competence points from chemical phenomena and their application. One competence point is about 18 hours of work. The curriculum for teaching chemistry says that: The students must know how to take into account chemical substances and their properties in their work and assess their chemistry skills in the vocational field. Key concepts are to understand chemical phenomena (such as chemical bonding and chemical reactions), the chemical properties (such as flammability, reactivity and toxicity of a substances) and possible environmental risks of the most common chemical substances used in the vocational field. In Vamia there are four pedagogical themes: energy, Lean, entrepreneurship and internationality. Sustainable development is listed as one of the subtheme in energy.

How do I integrate sustainable development when teaching chemistry?

“Did you ride the bus to school today? Was it a biogas bus?”

Photo: City of Vaasa / Mikael Matikainen

We are often talking about how to teach sustainability, circular economy or any subject related to the environment and efficiency. At the same time, we forget to think about our ways and methods of teaching. In the Train to Sustain-project we are also considering options on how to make our materials, content and resources as reusable and shareable as possible. The aim is to provide materials available in a digital format so that those are not needed to be printed or brought out from digital platform.

How digital tools and applications help us to improve sustainability? With digital tools and materials, we improve possibilities to offer training, which is not depending on any specific place or time. The students and teachers have access to files anywhere at anytime which means content could be updatable at any time with cloud services. No more printing new books yearly and no need to worry about consuming distribution methods. But… this is just one reason and the most obvious one.

Unfortunately, the project consortium is still not able to meet face to face and so we have begun to work on this project online. After a few very interesting online presentations about sustainability, circular economy and Lean from different experts in these fields, we are now well prepared to start working on the project results.

Therefore, we started with a brainstorming about the contents we would like to include in our theory package and about possible fields for the 360° environment in our meeting in March. Below, you can see some of our first ideas for the contents.

Initiatives toward a green transition at municipality and school levels in the city of Sønderborg, Denmark

In the February meeting of the Train2Sustain project, EUC Syd, Denmark presented their take on sustainability and illustrated with a few examples how this large concept, to which everybody can contribute in their own way, is integrated in the school’s educational program and strategic agenda.

As the largest vocational school in Southern Denmark with its administrative seat placed in the city of Sønderborg and as an educational institution with a green agenda, EUC Syd is a main partner to the innovative initiative called ProjectZero.