Avans obtains seventh place in the SustainaBul

Avans University of Applied Sciences has obtained seventh place in the SustainaBul, the sustainability ranking for Dutch higher education. In total, 32 educational institutions joined the competition. Wageningen University came out on top.

Photo: Still from the video about ‘Sustainability in Higher Education’, with Geoffrey van der Horst from Green Office

“Sustainable ideas and practices are not only taught in a course, but we also help students acquire this mindset”, explains the project leader Geoffrey van der Horst from Green Office in the video, which also shown to the judges. Maurice van Boxtel, coordinator of sustainable business practices at Avans, is thrilled with the results: “Avans prioritises sustainability. We should be very pleased with this seventh place. In 2020 we were still in fourteenth place, but back then we had not yet reflected on the interim results. We did this year though. Seventh place is consistent with where we are as Avans at the moment.”

Another third place

It was a great honour that one of our best practices was nominated for the special ‘best practice award’. In total there were five nominees out of 76 submissions. Our best practice ‘sustainability in education at Avans’ was put in third place by the judges.

Sustainable ideas and practices at Avans have been integrated into the teaching of all study programmes, as a course and as a mindset taught to all students. Avans is the first university of applied sciences with at least an AISHE two-star sustainability quality mark for all degree programmes.

Long term

Avans would like to anchor sustainability in its education systematically and in the long term. For this reason, sustainable higher education (dho) has been included in the standard accreditations of all full-time courses as a distinctive feature since last year. Avans is the first educational institution in the Netherlands to make this happen.

Together with the SDG coalition of Higher Professional Education and the Netherlands Quality Agency, Avans developed a manual for sharing evidence of their sustainable development. This also includes the Sustainable Development Goals. The first study programmes have now obtained this distinctive feature.