Authors
Sustainable development goals
Themes
- mobility and transport
- lifestyle and health
Tools
- communication campaigns
- stakeholder engagement
What does the promoted behavioral change consist of?
Universities affect the mobility of thousands of people, in consideration of the choices of territorial planning of the campuses and their infrastructures, as well as the planning of study / working hours of the university population.
Furthermore, universities can play a key role in the training not only of the professionals of the future, but also of citizens, representing a powerful tool for change: the integration of sustainable mobility practices in student education is able to generate a “domino effect”.
In this context, the European Commission funded the U-MOB LIFE Project with the aim of promoting networking between European universities, with the final aim of bringing people to move in a more environmentally friendly, more economically efficient and more integrated way.
The expected behaviour change is the one for which people move using the actually most sustainable means of transport for the specific need, thanks to the awareness, not only of the existence, but also of the usefulness of the new alternatives that the market offers, which are often not only more environmentally sustainable but also the most advantageous from an economic point of view.
What are the main features of the tools designed/implemented to promote behavioral change and how have they been tested?
As an example, we cite the latest initiative, launched in September 2019: a video prize competition, open to the entire population of Politecnico, on accessibility and sustainable mobility in Italian universities, whose goal is to disseminate the principles of sustainable mobility and to give to the university community the opportunity to provide its own vision, in a creative way, on the accessibility of campuses and on mobility practices in universities. The call, moreover, by asking that the issue be treated from the point of view of the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN 2030 Agenda, pushes people to reflect on the SDGs and their application in everyday life, as well as to think about possible mobility solutions, for the reduction of impacts.
What results have been achieved? What are the opportunities and obstacles?
Finally, with specific reference to the video competition currently in progress, it is noted that its potential concerns the possibility of reaching many people, both inside the Politecnico, given the large audience for which it is intended, and outside (the video format can have great resonance, conveying the message of sustainable mobility in a simple and fun way). Furthermore, the winning videos will be published on the U-MOB website, acquiring, in this way, international visibility.
The main obstacle is to obtain a significant number of participants in the competition, a difficulty already encountered in other contests.
[ultimo aggiornamento: 7/2/2020]
Research team at PoliMi
Giada Messori, Eleonora Perotto, Maria Licia Zuzzaro – Sustainability Unit
PROJECT
U-MOB LIFE (2016-2021)
Download the poster
