Aalto University: Celebrating Campus Sustainability Champions, Blending the New and Old

The Sustainable Campus team chose The Test Site concept as this year’s Campus Sustainability Champion, an honor it also received in 2019, along with the campus’s new wellbeing route. The theme of the competition was community.

Reasoning plays a significant role in the selection of winners. Typically, the same entity is not chosen as a champion twice. However, this year, The Test Site prominently emerged from community suggestions, and the justification for its selection was comprehensive. The Test Site is an ongoing project that, with its practical orientation, integrates both ecological and social sustainability. It brings students together and encourages new experiments. In The Test Site’s environment, community can be formed not just among humans but across different species as well.

Another feature chosen as a Campus Sustainability Champion in 2023 is the campus’s wellbeing route. The route brought together different parties at Aalto right from its planning phase. It is designed to support the wellbeing of all campus users with easy access; one can walk it at their own pace or even with a few colleagues if they need a short break and fresh air during their workday. Along the path, there are five small tasks designed to rejuvenate both the body and mind.