News

Record number of Aaltonians attended wellbeing & sustainability event

Published: 31.3.2023

The event brought a large number of Aaltonians to A Grid's Mordor hall. The program included hearing about the results of Aalto's energy saving campaign and future welllbeing projects on the campus

Campus sustainability event crowd — Wellbeing on a sustainable campus event. Tuomo Uusitalo presenting. Photo: Milla Uusitalo

The Campus Sustainability team organized an annual overview of current issues of campus sustainable development in A Grid. The theme of the event this time was wellbeing on a sustainable campus.

Sustainable development on campus can be viewed from the ecological, economic and social sustainability point of view. Social sustainability and the wellbeing of all campus users will play a central role in campus development in the coming years.

The first napping pods and wellbeing route on the campus

During the event, we heard about the campus's new wellbeing route, which will be opened in April. Along the wellbeing route, you can stop to listen to yourself and your surroundings with the help of short side tasks. The route has guided tours during its opening day on 19 April 2023, and is then available to be visited independently.

The napping pods to support refreshment in the middle of the day arrive on campus during this summer. The pods, implemented at the students' request, are part of the one euro for every student participatory budgeting project. The project will be implemented again next autumn.

Aalto University's Oasis of Radical Wellbeing presented their current activities in the event. Oasis of Radical Wellbeing community is present on campus and online, offering keys to wellbeing for everyday work and stud,y as well as for free time. Members of the Oasis of Radical Wellbeing team also work in the Campus Sustainability team, and share many of the wellbeing themes.

Good results from the energy saving campaign

The Aalto community's energy saving campaign started in October 2022 together with the national Down a degree campaign. The common goal was to reduce electricity and heat consumption by a total of 15 percent on the Otaniemi campus over the course of 12 months compared to the previous year. Several energy saving measures have already been taken, and the savings result in February 2023 is -3.98% for electricity and -14.11% for heat. By the end of February, 6.47 percentage points have been saved from the overall goal, i.e. about 45%.

The significance of the community's activities

Savings have been achieved not only through technical adjustments through building maintenance, but also through the changed consumption habits in the Aalto community's. After the winter months, the energy saving campaign moves towards the campus' overall goal of operating more carbon neutrally. In the future, we will report on the monthly results of energy savings every two to three months until the end of September 2023.

On Saturday 25 March, the Aalto community also participated in the international Earth Hour light signal for the climate by turning off the lights for an hour in four campus buildings. This was already the eleventh time that the Aalto community was involved in the event.

The main mission of the Campus Sustainability team is to promote sustainable development through the perspectives of ecological, social and economic responsibility.

Sustainability