Environmental corner

On this page you can find links and documents with information from SU and SRC and colleagues that help us make more sustainable choices - be it at work or in private. 

To get a basic understanding of the environment work at the university, please have a look at these slides that cover both SU policys as well as SRC carbon footprint and local policies and routines. -> Intro to Environmental work at SU & SRC

In brief comes here a summary of the slides: SU has an environmental management system that provides a structure that promotes systematic work around its environmental impact. This includes SU’s environmental policy that describes the approach and direction of the organization regarding environmental work.

The University's significant aspects for environmental impact are - Buildings and premises; Travel, transport, and work tools; Consumption; Chemical use/gas consumption; Reuse, recycling, and waste; Education, research, and collaboration; internal skills development.

As part of the environmental work the SU Climate Road map was devised to guide toward a carbon dioxide neutral university by 2040 and to take climate action by mobilising more resources for solution-oriented climate research and generation of expertise as well as developing environmental and sustainability courses across disciplinary boundaries.

Every department/unit needs to produce an Environmental Action Plan each year with activities for environmental work at local level that address the university’s significant aspects with the goal to reduce negative and heighten positive impact. An annual follow-up of the environmental work of the previous year is also obligatory. The chosen activities are suggested by staff & students but also influenced centrally in terms of focus area.

We have listed environmental measures that have been carried out and/or established at the SRC since 2019 through local environmental action plans.

On top of that SRC has its own routines and policies that feed into SU environmental framework.

There is the SRC food policy that aims to lower the centre's CO2 emissions by keeping meals for events vegetarian.

The purpose of the SU policy for meetings and travel is to make employees and students of Stockholm University aware of the importance of planning their meetings and travels in a way that minimises climate impact. On this page you can see the key points in an overview.

The SRC has introduced a routine since 2023 for encouraging train travel or taking the ferry instead of flying. The centre will pay for 50% of the ticket costs for trips outside Sweden and above 700km in Sweden. Often train tickets cost much more than air travel and this routine is meant to offset this hurdle and help make more sustainable choices. Read more here on the details of this routine.

Alasdair Skelton, environmental representative at Department of Geological Sciences, has compiled very useful information on how to plan and book your international train travel for work: https://goingbytrain.eu. He is truly a champion for promoting rail travel for business trips.

This website is also very useful when you want to search for good connections on your own: https://www.seat61.com

More related resources can be found in this Box folder.

For train travel that can be booked via SJ (i.e. domestic or direct connections to non- Swedish destinations) you can do that directly instead via AMEX which allows e.g. for student discount to be applied. Contact jill.wallin@su.se for details.

Since December 2025 we have a new travel agency for booking train travel. They offer a wider range of connections than Amex and are very helpful with bookings. Read more on the link below:

https://medarbetare.su.se/en/employment/working/travel/book-your-trip#h-Travellingbytrainabroad

Here is the direct link to the online booking form.

In general, an Interrail pass is excellent for longer journeys within Europe that take two days one way and require travel with several operators. It becomes cheaper and more flexible if you are willing to make the reservations yourself through the app. More information can be found on Alasdair’s website above.

There is a little booklet on my desk anyone can borrow and it's called Brain Train, a product from a project at Uppsala University. Come and ask me (Cornelia) about it!

https://www.uu.se/en/staff/news/2025/2025-02-10-taking-the-brain-train---work-trips-by-rail

“Trying to combine deep work and writing sessions with train trips to conferences.”

This is often easier if you travel first class, which is not much more expensive than second class when using Interrail.

• Check out the SU tool for tracking Carbon emissions for air travel

• Procurement

All services and wares that we use have an environmental impact. When purchasing and procuring environmental considerations should be taken as much as possible and the SU environmental policy applies to all purchasing. The Procurement and Purchasing Section at SU helps you set environmental and sustainability requirements.

For most things we have centrally procured providers, but it is possible to suggest environmental requirements to the Purchasing and Procurement Section under the Finance Office at SU that could be taken into consideration when an agreement runs out and a new process is started. This can be done via Serviceportalen, but suggestions for environmental improvements can also be sent in via the IA system. The more individuals report something, the more weight it carries.

• Environmental fika

At least once per term staff and students get invited to come to a fika session to ask questions around the environmental work or give suggestions on how the SRC could become more sustainable. Watch out for the calendar invite! :)

• Students can get voted into SU's Environmental Council

• We will collect tips and ideas on all topics such as travel or recycling or anything really from colleagues in this document. Unfortunately, it cannot be edited by all, but please email cornelia.ludwig@su.se to have your tips added! 

Any questions or suggestions to make SRC more sustainable that we should look into? -> Email Cornelia!