Newsletter December 2012

KTH-Sustainability Newsletter

December 2012

Interview with Professor Will Steffen
Save the date May 15 2013!
A toolbox for education for sustainability
What is social and economical sustainability? Save the date!
Forum for PhD-courses in Sustainable Development
New environmental policy and environmental objectives
Industrial Biotechnology: 1st International Symposium on Transaminase Biocatalysis
Engineering Education for Sustainable Development
How much energy does visiting a website consume?

Interview with Professor Will Steffen

On December 13th 2012, the Division of Environmental Strategies Research (fms) and KTH-Sustainability arranged an open seminar. Invited speaker was Professor Will Steffen, Executive Director of Climate Change Institute at The Australian National University, and senior research fellow at Stockholm Resilience Center. You can watch the lecture and a short interview with Prof. Steffen at our .

Save the date May 15 2013!

On May 15th 2013, KTH-Sustainability will arrange an AIMday on Sustainable Solutions for cities. This is a unique opportunity for academic scientists and companies to make contacts and exchange knowledge within areas coupled to sustainable solutions for cities. AIMday is centered on small group discussions where a question raised by a company or organisation is highlighted, and penetrated during one hour by scientists and experts from several different disciplines. More information will come in January, until then read more about the concept and previous AIMdays at www.aimday.se .

A toolbox for education for sustainability

KTH-Sustainability is funding a project for developing a toolbox for ESD (Education for Sustainable Development). In order to make this toolbox as useful as possible it is important to base this upon what teachers need. This is now explored through a short survey . The survey takes about 5-10 minutes to fill in and the results will be used as basis and inspiration when developing of the toolbox. If you have any questions about the project, or would prefer to be interviewed you are most welcome to contact Josefin Wangel at wangel@kth.se or 08-790 85 88.

What is social and economical sustainability? Save the dates!

While many teachers and researchers at KTH feel quite at home with the ecological dimension of sustainability, the social and economical dimensions are perceived as more hard to grasp. To support the inclusion of also these perspectives, KTH-Sustainability is arranging two seminars during the spring 2013. Each seminar will comprise a number of short presentations followed by discussions. Contact: Josefin Wangel ( wangel@kth.se ) or Emma Strömberg ( emmast@kth.se )
Social sustainability - Thursday February 7th 13-15
Economical sustainability - Thursday March 14th 13-15

Forum for PhD-courses in Sustainable Development

KTH-Sustainability is looking for an academic leader for the new Forum for PhD-courses in Sustainable Development that will start during spring. The person we are looking for shall at least have a degree of doctor, preferably also docent competence. The work is estimated to take 20% of full-time and will be financed from KTH-Sustainability. Send your letter of interest no later than January 20 to sustainability@kth.se .

New environmental policy and environmental objectives

According to Swedish legislation (SFS 2009:907), KTH must have an environmental management system, since we are a public authority. Our president decided in 2011 that the environmental management system shall be certified according to ISO 14001 during 2014. During this fall, the University Board decided of a new for KTH, and our president decided of for the period of 2013-2015.

Industrial Biotechnology: 1st International Symposium on Transaminase Biocatalysis

Feb 28 – Mar 1 at KTH

The Symposium on Transaminase Biocatalysis is an event for scientists from academia and industry within the field of Industrial Biotechnology. The enzyme class of transaminases can be used as biocatalysts for sustainable industrial-scale production of high value chemicals and pharmaceuticals. Deadline for early-bird registration: December 21st 2012.
The symposium is sponsored by the Swedish Research Council (VR), The Swedish Royal Academy of Science, The Swedish Chemical Society, and EFB European Section on Applied Biocatalysis (ESAB).

Engineering Education for Sustainable Development

Sept 22-25, 2013. Cambridge, UK

This is the 6th international conference on Engineering Education for Sustainable Development - EESD'13 . Theme of the conference is “Rethinking the Engineer”, and key aspect will be to explore how graduates of the many courses which now offer a sustainability dimension have utilised these new skills in their subsequent professional careers. Deadline for call for papers is January 18. It would be nice if several colleagues from KTH can participate – both for inspiration, motivation and exchange of best practices. Please send an e-mail to sustainability@kth.se if you plan to attend the conference!

How much energy does visiting a website consume?

In spring 2012, Centre for Sustainable Communications (CESC) and Sympact (University of Bristol) developed an app to calculate energy consumption of reading media content through various platforms. Now the app is available as a webpage. Check out the Energy Explorer to learn more about your environmental impact!

At last, KTH-Sustainability wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

For future newsletters we gratefully receive tips of interesting news from you within this area!

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