Institutional Strategy for Environmental Sustainability as a contribution to the SDGs in the Unidades Tecnológicas de Santander, Colombia (#1192)

Authors

Amaya Corredor, Carlos Alberto

Hernández Contreras, Carolina

Vargas Buitrago, Alba J

Bonilla Rodirguez, Leydi Carolina

Amaya Corredor, Edgar Mauricio

Abstract

The Unidades Tecnológicas de Santander, a higher education institution in Colombia, within its academic offer, presents the Environmental Engineering program, from this, in the last 10 years, through undergraduate projects of students, began to develop different strategies for institutional environmental management, addressing specific environmental aspects, but worked as particular disjointed actions. In 2022, these instruments were consolidated as the Institutional Environmental Sustainability Plan, PSAI. Its construction occurred as an evolutionary process, in 2018 the Institutional Environmental Identity Matrix, MIA-UTS, was formulated, relating institutional spaces and instances and environmental actions. For 2019 and 2020, in strategic alliance with Niagara Collegue of Canada, NC, as a proposal for academic strengthening of the Engineering program, the MIA is transformed, incorporating the concept of Greening, from UNESCO-UNEVOC (2018), from its guide “Greening technical and technological education”, creating the PSAI, in which, objectives, guidelines and institutional environmental policy are resized, in five strategic axes, with actions, times, responsible and expected results are related, in contribution to the SDGs. This document, approved by the Academic Council of the Institution, is assumed as a reference in the formulation of the Strategic Plan for Institutional Development UTS, 2020-2027. The PSAI is consolidated as the strategy for the development of institutional sectoral plans for environmental management, considering: institutional environmental education, research, management of resource consumption and waste generation, risk management and climate change management, as well as interaction with the communities of influence; as strengths for institutional social positioning, with a strong commitment to environmental sustainability