Sustainabuild

The 2030 Agenda, agreed upon by the United Nations in 2015, provides a holistic framework for sustainable development towards 2030, establishing a global and stable definition of sustainability within the construction industry. The 17 SDGs consist of 169 targets and 231 global indicators, which are interlinked and interdependent of nature. To address this complexity, interdisciplinary, global skills are required to meet the increased demands for sustainable solutions within the construction industry. While the SDGs should be approached as a whole, some SDGs and targets are more dependent on the construction sector’s activities than others. These are SDG 11 (sustainable cities and communities), SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation), SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy) along with SDG 3 (good health and well-being), SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production), SDG 9 (industry, innovation and infrastructure) and SDG 13 (climate change). Therefore, SUSTAINABUILD focuses especially on increasing the skills of students, lecturers, and practitioners in an interdisciplinary and global perspective, and thereby raising awareness about environmental and climate challenges and contributing to SDG 4 (quality education).

Knowledge and skills on how the built environment can contribute to the 2030 Agenda is needed among practitioners within the construction industry across Europe. Therefore, the overall aim of SUSTAINABUILD is to equip students at construction engineering programmes through increased sustainable knowledge, awareness, and interdisciplinary green sectorial skills in an international perspective using innovative digital didactic learning methods. Additionally, SUSTAINABUILD aims at providing valuable insights into the contribution of the built environment to practitioners and lecturers within the field, and ultimately push the sustainability agenda in Europe as well as accelerating the implementation by internationally exchanging ideas and good practices. 

To support these aims, the main objective of SUSTAINABUILD is to develop a 5 ECTS hybrid course (WP3) focusing in detail on how construction projects (new buildings and renovation projects) can support the achievement of the 2030 Agenda and implement the course in the educational programmes of the partners. The course will consist of a theoretical and a practical part and will provide a platform for lecturers to facilitate interdisciplinary and international learning activities, and thereby strengthen the interdisciplinary capabilities and awareness of sustainable solutions among student within construction engineering programmes. As a foundation for the course, a thorough analysis, with input from the national reference groups will be made (WP2), resulting in a strategy for enhancing SDG integration in construction projects, including details on what the curriculum should cover, along with practical cases of SDG implementation in construction projects. Based on the results of the strategic design framework, new educational material will be developed for the course, along with a digital handbook aimed towards practitioners within the construction industry.