Fostering a culture of sustainability

Sustainable development requires a long-term structural change in today’s economic and social systems with the aim of reducing environmental and resource consumption to a sustainable level while maintaining economic performance and social cohesion. The United Nations (UN) has developed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a plan of action for sustainability. 

Universities are in a unique position for developing a culture of sustainability. They are leading institutions for actively implementing sustainable measures as well as fostering the aims of sustainability in academic and research programmes. The University of Malta is committed to delivering on sustainability reflecting the principles of the SDGs. For this purpose, the Committee for Sustainability at the University of Malta (C-SUM) was set-up by Rector in September 2018. 

C-SUM’s remit is to foster a culture of sustainability, encourage staff and students, and academic, support and commercial entities at University by means of relevant information to act more and more with the SDGs in mind, as well as to discuss, support and propose actions that need to be implemented at University in order to improve sustainability on the University campuses and in University programmes. C-SUM reports directly to Rector.