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M. F. Cavalcanti-Bandos and A. Paucar-Caceres
(3) Dissemination of sustainable actions to the internal and external community; and
(4) Working towards sustainable procurement.
The main objective of the paper is to report on the way sustainability’ project
elements and the MMU Sustainable model helped to design VERSAS Project. We
discuss the process of design and implementation of a project to promote sustainable
development and ecological awareness amongst the Centro Universitário Municipal
de Franca (Uni-FACEF), situated in Franca, Sao Paulo, Brazil. The importance of this
paper resides in the fact that we worked on a real-world case of sustainability practices
to be implemented in Brazil, from a UK experience. The paper also contributes to
the debate as to how to align sustainable development practices in HEI along with
the UN SDGs.
The paper poses the following Research Questions—RQs:
RQ1 How can the Centro Universitário Municipal de Franca Sustainability strategy
can be aligned with some of the UN SDGs?
RQ2 How can the VERSAS Project be used to implement the Centro Universitário
Municipal de Franca sustainability strategy?
RQ3 How can the Centro Universitário Municipal de Franca adapt and adopt HEIs
sustainability models from European universities, in particular from the UK
universities into its overall sustainability strategy and reach the community
stakeholders involved in Sustainable Development (SD)?
We attempt to answer the first RQ by discussing the relevant SDGs and the strategic
efforts of Centro Universitário Municipal de Franca to align and mirror this SD. The
main part of the paper describes VERSAS Project as a platform in which the university can implement its sustainability strategy. The third research question assumes
that it is possible to adapt the experiences from European HEIs in bringing SD into
their sustainability strategy agenda. As indicated above, one of the authors spent two
months in the UK and it is her witnessing the work developed by MMU that has fed
the implementation of the VERSAS Project.
The rest of the paper is organised as follows: after this introduction, we briefly
review two strands of the literature related to the topic we aim to address. In Sect. 3,
we discuss sustainability in Higher Education Institutions: the experience of Manchester Metropolitan University. In Sect. 4, the methodological steps to implement the
VERSAS Project is discussed in detail. In Sect. 5, we present the initial findings of
our efforts to align the VERSAS Project with both the SDGs and the UK models on
SD. Finally, in Sect. 6, we offer some conclusions, recommendations as to how to
progress with this project, and, at the same time, to propose further researches.
2 Literature Review
For the purpose of the paper and in an attempt to answer RQ1, it was decided to
divide the literature review into two literature strands. First, we discuss the United
Nations Sustainable Development Goals because of the relevance, they have been
M. F. Cavalcanti-Bandos and A. Paucar-Caceres
(3) Dissemination of sustainable actions to the internal and external community; and
(4) Working towards sustainable procurement.
The main objective of the paper is to report on the way sustainability’ project
elements and the MMU Sustainable model helped to design VERSAS Project. We
discuss the process of design and implementation of a project to promote sustainable
development and ecological awareness amongst the Centro Universitário Municipal
de Franca (Uni-FACEF), situated in Franca, Sao Paulo, Brazil. The importance of this
paper resides in the fact that we worked on a real-world case of sustainability practices
to be implemented in Brazil, from a UK experience. The paper also contributes to
the debate as to how to align sustainable development practices in HEI along with
the UN SDGs.
The paper poses the following Research Questions—RQs:
RQ1 How can the Centro Universitário Municipal de Franca Sustainability strategy
can be aligned with some of the UN SDGs?
RQ2 How can the VERSAS Project be used to implement the Centro Universitário
Municipal de Franca sustainability strategy?
RQ3 How can the Centro Universitário Municipal de Franca adapt and adopt HEIs
sustainability models from European universities, in particular from the UK
universities into its overall sustainability strategy and reach the community
stakeholders involved in Sustainable Development (SD)?
We attempt to answer the first RQ by discussing the relevant SDGs and the strategic
efforts of Centro Universitário Municipal de Franca to align and mirror this SD. The
main part of the paper describes VERSAS Project as a platform in which the university can implement its sustainability strategy. The third research question assumes
that it is possible to adapt the experiences from European HEIs in bringing SD into
their sustainability strategy agenda. As indicated above, one of the authors spent two
months in the UK and it is her witnessing the work developed by MMU that has fed
the implementation of the VERSAS Project.
The rest of the paper is organised as follows: after this introduction, we briefly
review two strands of the literature related to the topic we aim to address. In Sect. 3,
we discuss sustainability in Higher Education Institutions: the experience of Manchester Metropolitan University. In Sect. 4, the methodological steps to implement the
VERSAS Project is discussed in detail. In Sect. 5, we present the initial findings of
our efforts to align the VERSAS Project with both the SDGs and the UK models on
SD. Finally, in Sect. 6, we offer some conclusions, recommendations as to how to
progress with this project, and, at the same time, to propose further researches.
2 Literature Review
For the purpose of the paper and in an attempt to answer RQ1, it was decided to
divide the literature review into two literature strands. First, we discuss the United
Nations Sustainable Development Goals because of the relevance, they have been