Background

Sweden's universities and colleges have an important task to contribute to the climate transition through our teaching, research and collaboration. But we also need to reduce the climate impact of our own operations.

At the federal assembly in March 2019, Chalmers and KTH's joint framework on climate commitments was presented. The purpose of the climate framework was to mobilize higher education institutions in Sweden to take their responsibility in the climate transition. The framework was intended to serve as support in the universities' strategic climate work.

Many higher education institutions came to join the framework. This led to discussions about whether the framework could be incorporated into the Swedish Association of Higher Education (SUHF)'s work with higher education recommendations. One advantage is that there is thus a structure for decisions and revisions.

SUHF's expert group for collaboration was commissioned to develop a SUHF-adapted framework. The higher education institutions were given, through the Network for Environmental Management at Universities and Colleges (MLUH), the opportunity to comment on the documents.

The result was that the climate framework was adopted in a revised form by SUHF in October 2021, and is called SUHF's Climate Network or the Universities' cimate network.