The inclusion of sustainability assessment into academic education has occurred in to the curricula of undergraduate and graduate programs across all Europe from at least ten years. This integration is occurring at different levels and speed in relation to the academic area of the bachelor or master degree. In particular, a lot of studies can be found about the embedding of sustainability issues in to engineers’ curriculum, but rare are the studies about such integration in other disciplines, such as agronomy. In the agricultural context, environmental sustainability is often limited to develop greener agricultural practices, such as precision farming, but usually a systemic vision of sustainability in food production is missing. In contrast to this approach, some studies proved that tools for environmental impact assessment - usually adopted by professionals in their work - can be also efficiently used for educational purposes. In particular, Life Cycle Assessment might significantly contribute to increase the holistic vision of agronomists because of its need to model agricultural systems and the understanding of the complexity of environmental effects of management strategies, through the use of different assessment methods and categories. Two experiences are discussed: (I) a pilot laboratory about the application of various environmental impact assessment methods in three course of three bachelor degrees at the University of Turin (Italy) and a full course about sustainability assessment in food production and distribution systems held in the ‘Sustainability of agro-food networks’ Master at the UNESCO Chair for Sustainable Development. From students’ comments, it was possible to identify interesting remarks on: system thinking, holistic view of productive systems, the problem of efficiency and conceptions about sustainable agriculture. All of these aspects reflect positively in the professional life of the agronomist even if they will not apply any environmental impact method in their activity.
The use of environmental impact assessment methods to improve agronomists’ curriculum: opportunities and constraints
CERUTTI, ALESSANDRO KIM;PADOVAN, Dario;DONNO, DARIO;MELLANO, Maria Gabriella;BECCARO, GABRIELE LORIS
2016-01-01
Abstract
The inclusion of sustainability assessment into academic education has occurred in to the curricula of undergraduate and graduate programs across all Europe from at least ten years. This integration is occurring at different levels and speed in relation to the academic area of the bachelor or master degree. In particular, a lot of studies can be found about the embedding of sustainability issues in to engineers’ curriculum, but rare are the studies about such integration in other disciplines, such as agronomy. In the agricultural context, environmental sustainability is often limited to develop greener agricultural practices, such as precision farming, but usually a systemic vision of sustainability in food production is missing. In contrast to this approach, some studies proved that tools for environmental impact assessment - usually adopted by professionals in their work - can be also efficiently used for educational purposes. In particular, Life Cycle Assessment might significantly contribute to increase the holistic vision of agronomists because of its need to model agricultural systems and the understanding of the complexity of environmental effects of management strategies, through the use of different assessment methods and categories. Two experiences are discussed: (I) a pilot laboratory about the application of various environmental impact assessment methods in three course of three bachelor degrees at the University of Turin (Italy) and a full course about sustainability assessment in food production and distribution systems held in the ‘Sustainability of agro-food networks’ Master at the UNESCO Chair for Sustainable Development. From students’ comments, it was possible to identify interesting remarks on: system thinking, holistic view of productive systems, the problem of efficiency and conceptions about sustainable agriculture. All of these aspects reflect positively in the professional life of the agronomist even if they will not apply any environmental impact method in their activity.
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