Teaching
The vanguard of sustainable development Students serve as awakeners and solve problems assigned by cooperation partners in multidisciplinary groups. Text: Krista Kinnunen Photo: Heidi Konttinen STUDENTS OF AALTO University’s Crea-
tive sustainability (CS) Master’s degree programme get to tackle large-scale challenges. The course’s spring semester includes a joint project with four clients. Familon wants to invent an effective way to recycle mattresses. Tampere Energy is considering possible future scenarios for district heating. Fiskars is interested in how gardening tools will evolve in the wake of urbanisation. Tanzania Meteorological Agency is engaged in a project that is examining how to supply local farmers with weather information that boosts their harvests and coping ability. “Corresponding problems are being mulled over by hundreds of experts around the world, but the role of our students is to question the self-evident, to awaken those who are not alert. A lot of students come from outside the Finnish context, and they are not locked into our traditional views and operating models,” says the head of the training programme, Professor Mikko Jalas.
Solar fence and tap water
The training programme provides good examples of practice-oriented problem solving that aims for a more sustainable future. Good technologies often exist, but applying them in practice may be difficult. In this, students of design, the engineering sciences and business can combine their expertise. For example, a student team has designed a solar fence for the Municipality of Tuusula. The fence abates traffic noise, in addition to which its embedded solar panels generate electricity. A practical application will be out soon. Together with the Helsinki Region Environmental Services Authority HSY, students considered ways with which to replace consumption of bottled water with tap water. The water distribution 24 / AALTO UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE 22
Students at the Creative Teamwork workshop in Suomenlinna in September 2017.
prototype the students created has been trialled at, among other places, the Slush event and the Forestry and Agriculture Fair, and HSY has commissioning more of them.
Aiming for responsible activity
The programme offers a broad serving of topical scientific knowledge related to sustainability and social responsibility. The aim is to educate and encourage students towards fresh thinking in the fields of design, architecture, management and real estate. “We want to train competent, critical professionals who can shape their own sectors and professional fields in an ever more responsible direction. The concept of sustainable development groups together a number of problems that we are eager to solve. It is at the core of the entire programme,” Jalas says. The students cooperate with several research projects, companies and organisations. The involved parties share a desire to develop their competitive advantage or their own identity around sustainable development. Jalas says that a key strength of the training programme and its students is the ability to challenge, to spur change.
“We are able to create sustainability innovations because we can see a little further into the future and because we examine issues from the perspective of sustainable development,” he states. And the world needs them. •
Creative Sustainability training programme • The English-language Master’s degree programme on sustainable development launched at Aalto University in 2010. About 40 students are accepted into the programme each year. • The joint School of Arts, Design and Architecture, School of Business and School of Engineering programme is aimed primarily at students focusing on the fields of design, architecture, management and the built environment. Creative Sustainability can also be studied as a minor subject. • The two-year programme accepts students from diverse backgrounds. Motivation and interest in questions related to sustainable development is the key factor when assessing applications. • Cooperation partners include businesses, public-sector actors and organisations.