Authors: Galina Kallio and Eeva Houtbeckers What happens when you put sustainability researchers, activists, and thinkers into conversation with two scholars passionate about shifting paradigms, add some microphones, and press record? This is how the HELSUS-funded Untame podcast was conceived, and the result has produced inspiring, thought-provoking, in-depth discussions with activists and thinkers on the cutting-edge of …
Continue reading “Introducing the Untame Podcast: Paradigm Shifters”
Urban agriculture, defined as the growing of plants and the raising of animals within and around cities, has evolved into a versatile field of activities. It may help cities and municipal planners to manage urban development in a sustainable way. The scale of urban agriculture extends from balcony flower boxes to rooftop greenhouses and several …
Finland’s Circular Economy Roadmap emphasizes that all actors have a role to play: including governments, municipalities, businesses and citizens. While there is a lot of discussion about how businesses can transform their products and services for the circular economy (CE), and what municipalities could do to encourage more circular patterns, citizens’ potential to contribute to the CE does not get as much attention.
Individual change is necessary to tackle sustainability challenges effectively. At Aalto University, we have developed a new app, AaltoSDG, in order to encourage its users to contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals by taking individual action and pushing for systemic change.
In October 2019 YLVA announced that their UniCafe restaurants are removing beef from their lunch menu and cafe items by February 2020. UniCafe is owned and operated by YLVA which is the Student Union’s (HYY) asset manager, owned by the students of University of Helsinki. Similar decisions to remove beef from the menu have been made in university cafeterias in other countries before. In the announcement YLVA reported that removing beef will reduce the carbon footprint of their restaurants by 11%. Now that the time has come and beef has left the building, it is a good time to return to this topic.
