Nova SBE — A School Working for a Sustainable Future
The environmental fine-tuning of the new Nova SBE campus, a 10-hectare site overlooking the Atlantic near Lisbon, reflects the school’s strong commitment to sustainability, both in practical terms and as a core value imparted to students.
Taps with timers save water, but taps with motion sensors save even more. Even before the new campus of Portugal’s Nova School of Business & Economics was inaugurated in September 2018, environmentally-aware students spotted the potential savings of switching from timers to sensors on every bathroom tap serving an academic community of 3,000 people.
Result: the suggestion was quickly approved, paving the way for a substantial reduction in water use.
The environmental fine-tuning of the new Nova SBE campus, a 10-hectare site overlooking the Atlantic near Lisbon, reflects the school’s strong commitment to sustainability, both in practical terms and as a core value imparted to students.
“We have an important responsibility not just to make our campus a showcase of sustainability, but also to sow values in our students’ minds that will be of paramount importance throughout their lives,” says Luís Veiga Martins, Nova SBE’s Chief Sustainability Officer.
The fact that the sensor tap idea originated with students and was readily approved by the school exemplifies the way Nova SBE encourages people to think in innovative, hands-on ways about how they can make a positive difference in the world.
“We try to work with the school on practical ideas to improve the sustainability of campus logistics and raise awareness of environmental issues more widely,” says Pedro Guimarães. A Nova SBE Economics graduate now studying for a Master’s in Finance at the school, Mr. Guimarães is the president of GreenNova, a student club dedicated to environmental issues.
“Students are part of the team,” says Mr. Veiga Martins. “They are passionate about sustainability and often have more direct experience of daily life on the campus than we do in our offices. It’s important for us to work in partnership with them to reach our sustainability goals.”
Moving to the new campus has provided Nova SBE with a unique opportunity to achieve exacting sustainability standards. Vítor Carvalho Araújo, one of the two principal architects, says sustainability was built into the school from the beginning — from a natural underground cooling channel to garden roofs providing thermal protection. “The way the buildings are positioned to catch the sunlight also reduces energy consumption,” he says.
In parallel with its strong position in the FT Business School Rankings, Nova SBE is targeting a top-20 place in the GreenMetric World University Ranking for eco-friendly campuses. To help reach this goal, the school has agreed with the Portuguese government to draw up an action plan to ensure that the campus functions as a “circular economy” — instead of a traditional make, use and dispose economy.
Rogério Marchante, Nova SBE’s Director of Facilities and Services, details some of the green features of the new campus, several of them originating in ideas from students and other campus users:
· more than 920 solar panels covering an area of 1,050 sq. meters with a combined capacity of 250kw, reducing the total energy bill by about 20%;
· intelligent lighting and air conditioning to reduce energy use;
· recycling water to irrigate the gardens;
· electric car charging points in the car park;
· printers only at a reduced number of sharing points — “we believe if you have to walk a few more metres, you’ll print less,” say Mr. Marchante;
· and a similar policy for waste bins, which will be placed at a smaller number of common points rather than in each office, simplifying cleaning and encouraging separation.
Sustainability is also at the core of Nova SBE’s teaching. “It’s a strategic pillar in our Master’s, MBA and executive education programs and will be gradually extended to our undergraduate courses as well,” says Mr. Veiga Martins. “Everything we do is done in partnership with our donors and corporate partners, for whom sustainability is also a critical real-world issue.”
Advancing sustainability is central to the school’s research. Renato Rosa of the Knowledge Centre for Environmental Economics at Nova SBE says the main focus is on interdisciplinary work and applied research. “To address specific environmental problems, we need to work with scientists from a broad range of disciplines — marine biologists, environmental engineers, forestry experts — as well as with companies, municipalities and the people directly involved,” he says.
Current projects include:
· studying, in partnership with Norwegian researchers, the risks associated with potential oil spills off the south-west coast of Portugal;
· supporting the Portuguese Sea and Environment Institute (IPMA) in improving fisheries management to help preserve fish stocks, especially in the important sardine fishing sector; and
· evaluating the economic potential of Portuguese forests and providing scientific tools to inform land use and forestry policies — “great care has to be taken with land allocation as a change from agriculture or forestry to urban use is usually irreversible,” says Professor Rosa.
At the United Nations General Assembly in New York this autumn, Nova SBE and the Municipality of Cascais announced details of an upcoming global summit they are organizing with other partners. It will feature some of the world’s greatest thinkers on sustainability and related issues. “The philosophy of the school and the new campus is that everything we do is for the benefit of society,” says Mr. Veiga Martins.
In a recent example of the enthusiastic engagement of Nova SBE students with environmental concerns, Green Nova took on the task of preparing a Green Guide for the new campus, detailing how students, faculty and staff can best reduce environmental impacts and cut costs for the benefit of the school and the wider community.
“We are working very closely with the cafés, bars and restaurants on the campus to reduce food, water and energy waste,” says Ana Martins, a Master’s in Management student and member of GreenNova who helped prepare the Green Guide.
Pedro Santa-Clara, former President of the non-profit Alfredo de Sousa Foundation, which developed the new campus, sees reduced costs and improving the quality of life for campus users as the chief practical goals of sustainability policies. “If everybody collaborates in keeping the school clean, we can reduce cleaning hours and lower the budget,” he says.
To this end, Nova SBE has created a program under which any savings made in the school-cleaning bill will be directly converted into student scholarships. It has also created Via Verde Boleias (Green Way Lifts), a ridesharing app to help people commuting to and from the new campus to share cars and costs. “Knowing that your behavior results in tangible benefits for others is a great incentive to get involved,” says Professor Santa-Clara.
Nova SBE is a leading school in the areas of Economics, Finance, and Management with its Bachelors’, Masters’, Ph.D.’s, MBA’s, and Executive Education programs. It is amongst Europe’s 30 best schools with more than 3000 students from more than 70 different countries, with programs acknowledged by the Financial Times. It is also among the selected Triple Crown world schools group, being the only Portuguese school classified by Eduniversal as a “Universal Business School”, having five Eduniversal Palms and its Master’s in Economics recognized in Eduniversal’s European Top 3.
Today the school is working with companies, institutions, organizations, and society as an open space in which the different actors in an ecosystem of progress can play a significant and positive role in transforming our world. After its first 40 years, Nova SBE intends to continue as what it has always been — a school that is open to the challenges and opportunities of the future. Its new campus in Carcavelos is an experience of the future for Portugal, Europe, and the World.
