At Nordregio, sustainability is an ongoing process shaped by people, behaviours and everyday actions. This was at the heart of Nordregio’s first ever Sustainability Week, an initiative inspired by Lund University and a way to strengthen engagement across the organisation.
Photo: Kotryna Juškaitė
Insight from the week reflects a broader understanding that sustainability is not only about strategies, policies or reporting frameworks. Rather, it’s about awareness, daily choices and the collective effort to build a workplace culture that supports long-term environmental and social responsibility.
Hedda Thompson, Research Fellow at Nordregio is one of the driving forces behind the initiative, she highlights:
“Sustainability in the workplace doesn’t happen on paper, it happens through people. With clothes and items swaps, environmental impact mapping and teamwork activities, we hope this week has contributed to more engagement and awareness of how can continuously create a socially and environmentally sustainable workplace!”
Activities encourage engagement
Creating a sustainable workplace requires continuous effort from all employees and management. Development of new habits, improving internal processes, and reducing our negative impact on the environment are ambitions widely shared in the organisation. The Nordregio Sustainability Week was designed as a practical response to address mapping our positive and negative ompact on the environment.
Over the course of the week, colleagues have engaged in a range of activities aimed at making sustainability tangible and accessible:
- Clothes and item swap: Staff were invited to exchange clothes and everyday items, extending product lifecycles and promoting circular consumption. To build on this momentum, a new internal swap platform was also launched, enabling continued sharing beyond the week itself.
- Vegan breakfast: As part of Nordregio’s fortnightly organisation-wide meeting, a plant-based breakfast was served, highlighting the environmental benefits of dietary choices and sparking conversations around sustainable food systems.
- Environmental impact mapping: Understanding our impact and how we can address them is a crucial step to identify challenges and opportunities for improvement.
- Team-based activities: Collaborative workout session, creative game playing, and spending time together to understand what each of us can do to change small habits or simply just learn more.
Looking ahead
Sustainability Week was part of Nordregio’s ongoing work to better understand and reduce our environmental impact. Building on insights from this week, a newly established environmental team will take this work forward, continuing to map impacts, identify improvements, and support the organisations sustainable practices in everyday work.
Can a single week change how we think about sustainability at work? It’s a good start, says Hedda. She continues:
"On its own, it can certainly spark conversation and encourage change. But more work is needed to keep the conversation going and create real impact among employees and the organisation as a whole."
