University and environmental health: Green advancement at the University of Florence revealed by UI GreenMetric ranking

Abstract

The University of Florence (UniFi) started participating in the UI GreenMetric ranking in 2018 to measure its commitments toward sustainability. Since then, several actions have been adopted to make advancements in the six categories of the ranking, spanning from the high-quality classroom environment to actions for the well-being of students. UniFi considers sustainability a transversal discipline addressed by all the schools in its different aspects (e.g. well-being, building structure, energy efficiency, climate change responsibility, waste management, and saving water resources). In particular, the cutting edge of UniFi is represented by its education sector. The total number of courses regarding the 17 Sustainable Development Goals in 2020/21 is increasing, covering now 26% of the academic offerings. These offerings give our students many opportunities to grow with their awareness of the current difficulties, providing the instruments to address their future. This is possible also thanks to the cultural events that UniFi promotes every year, despite the difficulties raised by COVID-19. Moreover, an average of ~3700 scholarly papers related to sustainability has been published in each of the last three years, the outcome of the excellent work of the UniFi researchers. Thanks to start-ups, the academic expertise on sustainability has also been taken outside to the industrial sector.