Sustainable Development Goals and Current Sustainability Actions at Politecnico di Torino

Abstract

Adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2015, the agenda of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represents a new coherent way of thinking about how issues as diverse as poverty, education and climate change fit together; it embeds economic, social and environmental targets in an holistic way. Implicit in such SDG logic is that each goal relies on another, although there are no clear ways to measure this intersection. International negotiations are obviously one trial table of these trade-offs. Universities, with their broad responsibility in the creation and dissemination of knowledge and their exceptional position within society, have a crucial role to play in the achievement of the SDGs and in understanding the complexity underling them, since they can help to demonstrate the university impact on society, shape an SDG-related education, build new partnerships, access new funding streams, and redefine the strategic plan of a university. This paper explores the way Politecnico di Torino maps its actions through the lens of a mission-based university, where SDGs can restructure and update the whole knowledge transfer approach to students and among staff. However, this transition is still difficult since departments and administrative unites operate in silos and the leader’s agenda does not allow a real flexible and adaptable model to feed in. Researchers and administrators also lack tools to identify which interactions are the most important to tackle, and evidence to show how particular interventions and policies help or hinder progress towards the goals. Given the size of the task of achieving the SDGs, this mapping exercise provides interesting stimula for the academic sector to accelerate insights on the SDGs complementarity and prioritization.