Our main focus areas in 2022 and beyond are:
Goal 8: Decent working conditions and economic growth
Goal 11: Sustainable cities and communities
Goal 12: Sustainable consumption and production
Read more below about 3 of our main focus areas.
2030 Agenda
Corps service, which is owned by the 3 corps and which runs Studentlivet.se and the corps houses in Östergötland, has a pronounced focus and work forward, to constantly focus on sustainability and make conscious choices that protect the environment, students and people in our vicinity.
To make the work concrete, we have chosen to look at the UN's 17 Global Goals, and work with Agenda 2030 in our daily operations but also at a strategic level in the management team and among the managers at Kårservice.
Today, more than half of the world's workers are in precarious employment, often with poor pay and limited access to both education and social security. In the next 20 years, the global workforce is also expected to increase by 800 million people, which requires great efforts to create new jobs that are also sustainable for people and the environment.
Decent working conditions promote sustainable economic growth and are a positive force for the entire planet. We must protect workers' rights and end modern slavery, human trafficking and child labor once and for all. By creating good conditions for innovation and entrepreneurship and ensuring decent working conditions for everyone, sustainable economic growth that includes the whole of society is promoted.
We have many fantastic non-profit students who choose to get involved with us. It is of the utmost importance that there are good working conditions for everyone, both for the person who closes a club house at 03:10 on a Saturday night and for a project manager for concept work. A work we worked on is called Safe corps houses which is very much about our non-profit workers, as well as our students who are in our environments.
The rapid and large migration to cities poses new demands that need to be met in an ecologically, economically and socially sustainable way.
Sustainable urban development includes sustainable construction and sustainable planning of housing, infrastructure, public places, transport, recycling and safer chemical handling, which in turn requires new technology and cooperation between several sectors. Our work from Kombo contributes to securing more safe accommodation for our students. And we have several social sustainability projects at, among others, Ryds Herrgård in the form of a cycling school, a math studio, a language café, etc.
Our planet has provided us with an abundance of natural resources, but we humans have not used them responsibly and are now consuming far beyond what our planet can handle. Did you know, for example, that 1/3 of the food produced is thrown away? Achieving sustainable development requires us to reduce our ecological footprint by changing the way we produce and consume goods and resources.
Sustainable consumption not only entails environmental benefits but also social and economic benefits such as increased competitiveness, growth in both the local and global market, increased employment, improved health and reduced poverty. Transitioning to a sustainable consumption and production of goods is a necessity in order to reduce our negative impact on the climate, environment and human health.
A large part of our operations are resource-intensive operations as food and real estate are part of our core business. Therefore, we are now doing everything we can to take stock of our various stages that we can influence and thereby reduce our climate footprint. From weighing food waste, as well as seeing how we can do to reduce it. We review our suppliers and try to work with food labeled with requirements as much as possible, as well as review our portion sizes when sitting etc.
It affects our choices
The fact that the environment, social responsibility and sustainability are the focus of Kårservice going forward directly and indirectly affects our choices. It affects everything from the choice of supplier, how we take home our goods (transportation), how we prepare the food in our kitchens and how we work with our menus, range and services in our businesses.
Below we will list a number of concrete conscious choices and decisions that Kårservice has chosen to take, for a more sustainable organization and partner.
Coffee (goal 12)
One of Kårservice's sustainable staples is coffee, because it is one of the most sprayed foods that Swedes consume, this leads to problems both for the environment and the farmers.
Kårservice has chosen to serve coffee from Arvid Nordquist for several reasons:
- The coffee we serve at our club houses is carefully selected with several certifications: Fairtrade, Krav and EU Organic.
- Arvid Nordquist climate-compensates his coffee to 100%.
- The packaging material is based on renewable raw materials.
- Just over 90% of the coffee beans in the Arvid Nordquist base range contain coffee beans certified by UTZ
- Arvid Nordquist was the first in the Nordics to consistently use 100% sustainably certified coffee beans.
- Most importantly, the consumer can be sure that an annual third-party inspection has taken place
Job training - Internships (goal 8)
Kårhuset Ryds Herrgård, the meeting place located in the middle of the Ryd district, is one of seven efforts in Coordination bridge 2.0, which aims to work together for increased integration and offer opportunities for development and employment for our municipal residents.
The meeting place offers the opportunity for the individual who is in need of job training, to take a step towards work and self-sufficiency. Supervised internships are offered in the house mainly in the areas of café and restaurant in close cooperation with Linköping Municipality and Central Östergötland Coordination.
[hg] Café Is part of our work with social sustainability. In our cafe, participants can train under the supervision of our supervisor and then be part of a social context, gain knowledge in areas such as cafe & restaurant, and create routines.
Through knowledge and personal development, the participants then get an opportunity to find a path to studies or employment.
Dare to care (goal 8)
There are many actors in student life at LiU. 3 student unions, 7 union houses, at least 150 parties & associations,
36 students. In this wonderful crowd of people and events, we see the need to jointly and in an organized way stand up for the good student life and the importance of daring to care for each other on all levels. Dare to Care helps us become a better organizer, but also a safer employer where we look after our employees, and where we see our responsibility as an employer.
In autumn 2022, an initiative started together with RFSU with the aim of providing student life visitors and organizers with tools to prevent and prevent sexual harassment. We work with information, communication and education. The initiative will be kept alive over time and the material will be supplemented and updated on an ongoing basis. Kårservice stands behind the initiative together with our three student unions; Consensus, StuFF and LinTek, Förenade Festerier in Linköping and Norrköping and Student Health. Materials are available for download here.
Bokashi (Target 12)
Since the turn of the year 2022/2023, part of our work for a more sustainable business is to work with Bokashi at Ryds Herrgård.
So what is Bokashi, how does it work and how does it contribute to a better environment?
In the bokashi, the food residues are fermented, which means that the nutrients and energy in the food residues can be extracted and used as nutrition for planting soil. At Ryds Herrgård, this planting soil will then be used for planting spices. Our participants who work as trainees with us will help with the maintenance of this. These spices will in turn be used in our cooking, and the leftovers will end up in the bokashi again. In this way, Bokashin ensures that the food created at Ryds Herrgård has its own cycle.
Swedish meat (goal 12)
One of the many advantages of visiting our club houses is that you, as a guest, know that you can always buy good food and a hot cup of coffee. We focus a lot on sustainability when it comes to what we serve? We offer, among other things, coffee that is both organic and fair trade, Swedish meat and other locally produced ingredients to the extent that we can.