Faced with the growing climate challenges, UniLaSalle is reaffirming its ambition and laying the foundations for an inspiring school in terms of commitment to ecological and societal transformation, by launching its strategy: Uni4change.
Uni4change, 5 priority issues
This strategy is structured around 5 priority issues that embody the uniqueness of the Institut Polytechnique and its four campuses:
- Climate and Energy
- Biodiversity
- Food and Health
- Water, Soil and Resources
- Cities and Territories
- Lasallian commitment and social justice
These priority issues are based on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the various roadmaps (Paris Agreement, Agenda 2030, European Green Deal...) which outline the prospects for sustainability by the end of the decade. They are based on the training, research, values and history that make up the identity of UniLaSalle.
"It is UniLaSalle's responsibility to innovate and position itself on these issues in order to provide analysis and innovative solutions to our students and stakeholders."
Geoffroy Belhenniche, Director of Ecological and Societal Transformation at UniLaSalle
UniLaSalle mobilizes and acts
"This ecological and societal transformation project was omnipresent in our strategy over the past few years and has been at the heart of our mission since 2017," recalled Philippe Choquet, UniLaSalle's director general.
The implementation of this policy is concretized by:
- The affirmation of a collaborative research-action around the pedagogy of commitment to the SDGs;
- An investment plan for thermal renovation and energy autonomy of 10 million euros by the end of 2025;
- The establishment of an endowment fund to support the projects and initiatives of students and employees in favor of sustainability, with an endowment of €100,000
30 years of commitment
It was also a question for UniLaSalle, which has been committed for more than 30 years to environmental issues, of reviewing its past commitments: involvement in the creation of the Green Plan in 2009 and then of the DD&RS label in 2015 (obtained for the whole group in December 2020) and its strategy, particularly through the merger of the schools, motivated by an increase in expertise in the sciences related to these global issues.
Supported by a team of 6 people dedicated to this transformation, the ambition is to associate clear objectives with the commitments, which the stakeholders, and in particular the students and employees of UniLaSalle, but also the partners (schools, service providers, local authorities, etc.) will be able to grasp.
"This transformation will penetrate all of the school's quality processes and make it possible to revise all of the Institute's practices by relying on the spirit of the ISO 26000 standard and the SD&RS reference framework."
Valérie Leroux, Associate Director General of UniLaSalle
The launch of the Uni4change strategy took place in the presence of UniLaSalle's stakeholders (employees, students, alumni, members of the board of directors, local authorities, partner companies, etc.) on Friday, September 23.
On the occasion of this event, the philosopher Dominique Bourg, a specialist in environmental issues and honorary professor at the University of Lausanne, debated with the Institute's students.
Discover the strategy of ecological and societal transformation
