Lorenzo Di Lucia
L. Di Lucia - Sustainability in academic strategies
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After graduating in law in Milan, Lorenzo Di Lucia completed a Master's degree in Sustainability Studies at the University of Lund (Sweden), where he stayed for a PhD on public policy in the biofuels sector. From 2014 to 2022 he is at the Centre for Environmental Policy in London: here he focuses on the functioning of bio-based fuel supply chains and their social impact on land and natural resources. In Gothenburg, between 2019 and 2023, he works on decision-making models in support of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Since 2023, he has been a lecturer-researcher at the SUPSI Management and Entrepreneurship Competence Centre. He works closely with companies, supporting them in adopting corporate social responsibility principles. This includes developing tools to calculate a company's carbon footprint or the greenhouse gas emissions of products and services. In teaching, he focuses on CSR and stakeholder engagement. He is recently a member of the SUPSI Sustainability Working Group.
Lund University, Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Imperial College London. How is sustainability addressed and communicated in these realities?
Until a few years ago in London, but also in Gothenburg and Lund, there was no talk of sustainability reporting. It was in 2022 - 2023 that publications began to appear presenting university projects and strategies structured in this area. Until then, the institutes where I worked were engaged in sector-specific certification processes that ensured that specific standards were met: environmental ones, such as the use of recycled paper, or social ones, such as measures to promote work-family compatibility. The pandemic gave impetus to the publication of sustainability reports as we know them today: first companies started, then universities, and backwards municipalities and public bodies are joining in. In my career as a researcher in England and Sweden I was never involved in such projects, which were in most cases handled by administrative staff. In the preparation of the SUPSI sustainability report, involving both researchers who are experts in the field and administrative staff who are attentive to the Institute's quality assurance processes is an added value that forms the basis of a common and shared strategy.
A sustainable development strategy requires planning. There is often a big difference between theory and practice. In education, what factors must be considered in order to propose viable solutions?
Initially, there is certainly consensus on the issues that the university, as such, must address. Some critical issues may emerge when sustainability considerations clash with the founding elements of research and education mandates. Planning sustainable strategies is a structural process, it takes time, it is a complex of systemic actions that always have an impact on each other. To take one example, teachers - with good reason - must prepare students for the world of work. If the latter does not require skills in this area, it will be difficult to fit into an already dense curriculum more hours dedicated to sustainability aspects declined according to the needs of different educational paths. Now, as we know, awareness of these aspects has increased and these skills are increasingly in demand, in all professions. It is a question of understanding how to transmit them, but above all of enabling teachers to do so not to the detriment of, but in addition to, the other aspects of training.
In the context of actions in support of the SUPSI Quality Assurance System, it takes part in the self-assessment process of the Bachelor in Leisure Management.
This is an opportunity to enhance the sustainability aspects already present in the degree course and to identify those that are missing or can be improved. During the workshops, lecturers explain how they intend to promote sustainability awareness among students, after which they link these ideas to the UN Sustainable Development Goals in order to assess their inclusion in the course modules It is a useful process to provide course leaders with a snapshot of the state of the art of the bachelor's programme in relation to sustainability. Without such analytical work it would be complicated to formulate targeted proposals for improvement. Should it work, we could also test this method on other training courses.
Every four years, WWF Switzerland launches a survey to assess the extent to which sustainability is embedded in business courses. What feedback did you get from the DEASS courses?
The Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, the Bachelor's degree in Leisure Management and the Master's degree in Business Administration with a major in Innovation took part in the survey. They all found the questionnaire very useful and the survey well done. Since the course in Leisure Management is going through the self-assessment process it will have much more complete answers for the survey. For the other courses, it is a process that takes time and attention, but it is again an opportunity to improve and update.