One of the key ambitions of HEI GreenPath was to move beyond general discussions about sustainability and bring green skills directly into the learning process. During the project, partner institutions worked on integrating sustainability-related competences into selected university courses and testing how this approach works in practice.
Rather than creating sustainability as a completely separate topic, the project focused on embedding green skills into existing subjects. This made it possible to connect environmental awareness and sustainable thinking with different areas of study and show students how these competences can be relevant to their future professional and everyday decisions.
Green skills within existing courses
Within WP3, the partnership selected university subjects that could be enriched with green skills content and prepared teaching materials supporting their implementation.
The work included identifying appropriate courses, developing or adapting learning content, introducing sustainability-related elements into teaching, and then piloting the modified courses with students.
Across the partnership, the project worked with 15 selected subjects, demonstrating that green skills can be introduced in different academic contexts and do not have to be limited to environmental or technical programmes.
The aim was not simply to add information about climate change or environmental protection. The approach encouraged students to develop competences such as:
- understanding the environmental consequences of decisions;
- considering sustainability in professional and organisational contexts;
- thinking critically about the use of resources;
- identifying more sustainable alternatives;
- recognising individual and institutional responsibility for sustainable development.
Testing the approach with students
A particularly important element of HEI GreenPath was the practical implementation of the prepared content.
The enriched courses were piloted by partner institutions, allowing students and lecturers to experience the approach in real teaching conditions. The implementation was accompanied by evaluation activities, including feedback from students and teaching staff and pre- and post-activity assessment tools.
This gave the partnership an opportunity not only to check whether the developed materials were useful, but also to identify what worked best and what could be improved.
Feedback collected during the pilot phase supported the further refinement of teaching content and provided practical recommendations for the future use of green skills in higher education.
More than a project activity
The integration of green skills into university courses is particularly important because it creates an opportunity for the project results to continue long after the formal end of HEI GreenPath.
The materials and experience developed during the project can be reused in future editions of the courses, adapted to other subjects and shared with additional lecturers. In this way, the pilot activities can become a starting point for a broader integration of sustainability into university education.
For partner institutions, the project also created an opportunity to look at existing curricula from a new perspective and consider where sustainability can be naturally incorporated without requiring the creation of entirely new study programmes.
A practical step towards more sustainable higher education
HEI GreenPath has shown that introducing green skills into higher education does not always require major structural changes. Sometimes the first step is to review what is already being taught and identify where sustainability can meaningfully become part of existing learning outcomes, examples, assignments or classroom discussions.
By connecting sustainability with regular teaching, universities can help students understand that green skills are not relevant only to environmental specialists. They are increasingly important across professions and sectors.
The work carried out within HEI GreenPath therefore represents an important transition from theory to practice – from talking about the need for green competences to actually incorporating them into the educational experience of university students.
The project may have formally ended, but the courses, materials and experience developed through this work can continue to support greener and more sustainable higher education in the years ahead.