New Master Thesis Assignments | Sustainability awareness and sustainable behaviour change at the UT (@CFM and Green Hub Twente)

Assignment

At the UT, we consider sustainability to be a precondition for everything we do. Therefore, it is necessary that students and staff at UT are aware what is happening in the area of sustainability at UT. This includes our own operational management as well as sustainability in education and research. The goal is to ensure that by 2030 the University of Twente has become a sustainable organization. To achieve this, a sustainability policy for operational management has been developed. The Green Hub has been established in 2020. And in 2023 the Climate Centre was initiated.

It is not clear however, whether the policy has successfully increased awareness among UT staff and students, how Green hub activities have contributed to increasing awareness and whether awareness has effectively led to a change in behaviour amongst UT staff, and/or how this effectiveness should be measured to begin with.

In this assignment, which will take place at the UT’s CFM and Green Hub Twente, you will be asked to do one of the following tasks:

Determine the effectiveness of the sustainability policy measures (such as posters and graphics) in terms of staff and student’s awareness; e.g., what do staff and students think of the policy measures, do they know about the policy, and has the policy changed their opinions? Another venue would be to focus on means with which policy effectiveness can be increased.
Do staff and student know of the Green Hub? Do they know its role and have they attended activities organized by Green Hub? Do they know of or have they attended Sustainability Dialogue sessions? Do they know of the Green Team of their faculty (Faculty Green Teams are formed at ITC, ET and TNW)?
Are staff and students aware UT has a Climate Centre? Have they attended a climate café?
Develop a tool that can be used to measure how staff behaviour has changed as a result of the implementation of this policy. The next step will be to actually use this tool to conduct a baseline measurement, against which future measurements can be compared. You are encouraged to be creative in the construction of the tool; in addition to questionnaires, you could also consider the use of behavioral data, such as that from the UT’s energy monitor.

Keywords

Climate psychology; sustainability; energy conservation; pro-environmental behaviour; behavioural change;

Background information organization

CFM - The UT wants to fulfil its societal duty by stimulating awareness on energy, the environment and sustainability issues. To put this into practice, Campus & Facility management (CFM) at the UT has launched the Sustainability, Energy & Environment (SEE) programme, a university-wide programme for managing its sustainability, energy, and environmental performance. With this programme, the UT wants to achieve a lasting reduction in its consumption of energy and raw materials and its carbon emissions through organizational and technical measures.

Green Hub Twente - Green Hub Twente is the central point where actionable knowledge and initiatives across a holistic spectrum of sustainability matters converge and reinforce each other. Founded in August 2020, Green Hub plays an active role in the change management for sustainability at UT. Green Hub Twente is a student-driven and staff-supported work environment where the Student Green Officers also develop skills and competencies for managing and leading on sustainability in professional life, with guidance from the Coordinator, support team, and associated partners and mentors in the growing Green Hub ecosystem.

Climate Centre - As a centre, their mission is to empower students, staff, and society to maximize their impact on the world's climate challenges. Their strategic goal is to foster and connect the University of Twente's climate-related research and educational strengths, collaborate with stakeholders to enhance impact, facilitate a sense of community, and represent and provide a clear ear, face, and voice to the world.

Faculty Green Team – a team of staff and students who initiate and support faculty-tailored sustainability initiatives in education, research and operations (depending on the team’s priorities) with a link to and support from the Green Hub.

Availability

This project is open to 2 students. Please note that this project can also be part of your master thesis.

Interested?

For a master thesis, please contact PCRS master thesis coordinator Steven Watson (s.watson@utwente.nl). For an internship, please contact the PCRS internship coordinator Miriam Oostinga (m.s.d.oostinga@utwente.nl)

Literature

To be announced. Other interesting links: