2023-05-08

Series "climate friendly"

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Authors

Manuela Casagrande

is an art historian and co-director of the Cultural Management (SKM) program at the University of Basel, Switzerland.

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Results of the Life Cycle Assessment of a Cultural Management Study Program

A Ton Lighter

Digitizing university teaching can improve sustainability, as the master’s program in cultural management at the University of Basel (SKM), Switzerland, discovered during the pandemic. Own observations and an eco-balance gave impulses to carry out the teaching offer in a more attractive and ecologically sustainable way and to reassess the previous processes.

Series "climate friendly"

see all articles for this series

Practice what you preach

The topic of sustainability has been integrated into the curriculum of the part-time Master of Advanced Studies (MAS) in cultural management for several years. In several block seminars, economic, social and ecological aspects of sustainability are discussed, for example when it comes to travel costs, wages, project management or cultural policy funding priorities. Likewise, students learn from practical examples how they can reduce the CO2 emissions of their cultural organisation with simple measures.

According to the motto "practice what you preach”, it was obvious for the SKM to take a closer look at the ecological footprint of its own study program. Despite extensive knowledge, the first question on our minds was: Where should we start? For the first steps in the life cycle assessment, we were able to draw on the university network and received support from the Sustainability Office, which evaluated the data for us. As the cultural management course at the SKM had to switch all courses to online teaching for two semesters during the pandemic, we were interested in the question of how the CO2 balance sheets of two different course implementations differed.

Measured values for the life cycle assessment of the SKM

We retrospectively collected data from the two-year pre-pandemic course (2018-2019), which took place face-to-face, and the post-pandemic course (2021-2022), which was held online for 20 percent. The measurements referred to the mobility and catering of students and lecturers, as well as excursions within the two-year MAS program. No clear quantification could be made for the area and equipment of our offices and course rooms because the energy data only refer to the whole building. Under the aspect of mobility, we recorded the distance in kilometers as well as the chosen means of transport in tabular form. An air travel-monitoring system, which many universities have today, simplified the data collection. With regard to meals, we distinguished between communal meals in a restaurant and individual lunches.

The following analysis tools were used for the CO2 balance sheet:

Calculator for travel: Carbon Calculator from Carbon Footprint
Meal Calculator: Information from the Keeks project
Calculator for hotel accommodation: Information from the portal Bio Hotels

When it comes to our selection of courses with international lecturers, mobility is the most important factor in terms of CO2 emissions. The largest item is the air travel of the lecturers. The journeys of students and staff, who almost always travel by public transport or bicycle due to the shorter distances and good transport connections, are less significant. The following table summarizes the CO2 emissions in 2018-2019 that resulted from travel, including hotel accommodation and meals.

If we add 0.6 tons for the students’ and the SKM team’s travel to the approximately 4 tons of CO2 emissions, we are just below the annual domestic emissions of a person living in Switzerland (5 tons of CO2 equivalents on average). To compensate for our emissions, a piece of forest with around 400 trees would have to decompose CO2 for one year.

Measures in teaching

In order to improve our eco-balance, during the MAS program of 2020-2021 we examined whether teaching for lecturers with long arrival routes could be conducted online through a combination of knowledge transfer, exercises, and coaching. Of the total 76 study days of the MAS in Cultural Management, we have thus converted one fifth of the teaching days to online instruction. Compared to the study years before the pandemic, we were able to save one ton of CO2 equivalents with this measure alone, which is equivalent to the amount needed to produce 13,600 cups of coffee.

Web-based lectures via Zoom also consumes energy. Even if the energy required for this within private households is included, the amount is still vanishingly small compared to flight emissions and can be neglected. The UZH fact sheet Business Travel gives a good insight into the dimensions. Today, we recommend that lectures living less than 1000 km away travel by train. However, the choice of means of transport is left to them. Most of them prefer to travel by train. If there are bottlenecks, we move the seminar times forward so that the journey home can be made on the same day.

To avoid having to renounce designated experts from more distant regions, punctual online seminars are a good alternative. In this way, experts from different parts of the world can join, e.g., in the current "CAS Cultural Policy" from the U.S.A., Nigeria and Ukraine.

Opportunities of online teaching

In addition to the emission savings in travel, there are other benefits of online instruction:

Online lectures allow for easier work with detailed documents and figures, such as budgets, which can be shared and revised more easily during class.
Cantonal differences in vacation dates can be compensated for, as it is possible to join from vacation if necessary. According to feedback from some students, it is also easier to manage the compatibility with family tasks on the weekends.

However, the positive consequences of online teaching are also accompanied by a different rhythmizing of learning. This is a change for students and lecturers that should not be underestimated and has implications for didactics and the acquisition of learning content. Learning in face-to-face classes is deeply internalized, and there is a danger that class days will be shifted to digital channels. The "flipped classroom" method - the self-study via readings, assignments or video tutorials followed by consolidation and exercises in face-to-face classes - tries to combine the best of both worlds. However, the method is only gaining acceptance hesitantly for the aforementioned reasons and fixed teaching times.

We will continue to monitor (also experimentally) the consequences of web-based teaching on the offered courses. It is important to carefully weigh up in which case which method is conducive to teaching or when it is better to accept a long journey for a teaching unit.

Face-to-face lectures are still high on the agenda

Face-to-face teaching is still highly valued by both students and faculty and cannot be completely replaced by online teaching. It is an important part of our master's program because we want to support personal networking among students and faculty. The dialogic teaching or the exchange of knowledge and experience in the informal conversations during the common coffee and lunch breaks characterize the on-site teaching. Central components of the curriculum are therefore also the so-called laboratory days, which enable students to deal with their own project ideas in depth, as well as the one or two excursion-days per year.

Recommendations of the Sustainability Unit

The recommendations for the SKM are of a general nature and can provide impulses for the cultural sector, as well as for private households. We focus on areas where we as SKM can exert influence. For lecturers, there is freedom to choose their way of travelling, which we support by coordinating appointments as flexible as possible. We also try to print out as little as possible, use FSC-certified paper, and pay attention to reusable tableware, local products, and the travel routes of the participants at the events.

Particularly when it comes to catering, we can improve significantly as a study program if we increasingly include regional and seasonal offerings. Perhaps the sensitization during the study program had an effect on the fact that the MAS class of 2020/21 chose a vegetarian restaurant for the joint final dinner. The difference is also reflected in our bottom line. A vegetarian meal causes 0.61 kg CO2 - six times less than a menu containing meat (3.6 kg CO2). Further recommendations can be found in the event guide, and the catering guide developed by the specialist unit, many of which can also be applied to projects and cultural enterprises.

Conclusion

Looking at a CO2 balance sheet brings an interesting perspective to an organization.
On different levels, small and large, a CO2 balance sheet can bring about change. It shows us that our awareness of sustainability does not begin at the doors of the cultural organization, but already in the training of cultural managers - both in the theoretical discussion and in the practical implementation of university training.

In a representative survey of Swiss students conducted by the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment BAFU in 2021, around two-thirds of respondents wanted sustainable development to be expanded in teaching, research and university operations. Sustainability is probably not (yet) a decisive criterion for choosing a course of study. However, sustainability is increasingly taken for granted in educational institutions, and culture management programs in particular must respond to this.

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