Open for the Climate

WHat you will learn Increased knowledge on sustainable cities and communities. Deeper understanding of the relationship between urbanization, decarbonisation and sustainability. Improved critical thinking on the opportunities and challenges for sustainable cities and communities as engines for greening the economy. Expanded ability to use systems thinking to assess sustainable cities and communities.   About this SpecializationIn this specialization you will learn how to drive change in cities and communities towards sustainable, climate friendly, just, healthy and prosperous futures, and you will boost your career with new knowledge, understanding and skills for navigating urban transformations. This specialisation brings together a series of cutting-edge courses with world-leading teachers on cities, communities, sustainability, governance and innovation. This specialization is offered by the IIIEE at Lund University and the City Futures Academy – an online learning community on urban transformations. Our flagship course, Greening the Economy: Sustainable Cities, is ranked in the Best Online Courses of All Time by Class Central. The ranking by Class Central contains 250 courses from 100 universities based on 170,000 reviews. Our specialisation builds on the success of the Greening the Economy: Sustainable Cities course.  A key approach embedded in the courses in this specialisation is the role of experimentation in urban transformations. In particular, urban living labs are highlighted as a means for catalysing change in cities and communities towards sustainable, climate friendly, just, healthy and prosperous futures. The experimentation within urban living labs offers the potential for accelerating transformations and systematic learning across urban and national contexts. Applied Learning Project Learners are introduced to key facts and insights about sustainable cities and communities as engines for greening the economy, then tasked with developing this understanding through readings and practice exercises that highlight the role of urban living labs in creating sustainable cities and communities. Specifically, you will learn: how to work with greening the economy through cities and communities; how to design and implement urban living labs for accelerating change in cities and communities; how to build resilience and create a host of benefits from nature-based solutions in cities and communities; and how to influence consumption patterns in cities and communities through sharing practices . Further documentaries and quizzes will provide you with critical thinking and a broader and deeper perspective that are essential to understanding and creating sustainable cities and communities. 

This is an introductory course on the history, social, economic, and ecological aspects of food production in the Baltic Sea Region. The course  also focuses on future challenges, such as food security and climate change. The course consists of four parts. -The history of agriculture in the Baltic Sea Region -Ecological, economic and social aspects of food systems -The challenges of sustainable food systems - now and tomorrow -Examples from the region Upon completion of the course, students can request a digital certificate by contacting pontus.ambros@balticuniv.uu.se

This course is taught in Swedish. Get started with measuring and running a systematic sustainability program! This course is mainly aimed at small and medium-sized enterprises. Using concrete tools such as the Green Performance Map (GPM) and Quality Function Deployment (QFD), you will be supported in identifying relevant sustainability goals and translating them into metrics. The course shows how to integrate sustainability work into daily improvement work, how to create anchoring in the organization, and how psychological security, leadership and culture are key factors for long-term change. You will also gain insight into how metrics affect motivation, behavior and management - and how to balance between controlling and leading metrics.

Climate transition is one of the greatest challenges humanity has ever faced. This course explores a range of key topics and practical tools for mitigating climate change in a sustainable way. It emphasizes the importance of solutions that do not lead to higher energy consumption or increased extraction of natural resources from the Earth. The course begins by introducing the basic components of the Earth system and how they behave across continents and oceans, with a focus on historical climate changes. Climate change is then examined within a broader context, alongside other planetary boundaries—many of which have already been crossed and have direct or indirect impacts on the climate. The course also covers the fundamentals of climate change and explores methods used to study the evolution of greenhouse gases. Various strategies for removing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide are discussed, along with the challenges and limitations of each approach. A key focus is placed on circular economy practices, such as remanufacturing old products and producing energy and biofertilizers, which are presented as effective technologies for directly mitigating climate change. Finally, the course addresses the crucial role of climate communication and politics in raising public awareness and driving collective action to tackle this global issue. Content Planetary components and behavior Changes in the continents and in the oceans Planetary Boundaries Climate Change fundamentals Monitoring green house gases Carbon dioxide removal Circular economy and biogas solutions Climate communication and politics Course Structure The course is fully digital with pre-recorded lectures. You can participate in the course at your own pace. You will learn By the end of the course, you will have gained a deeper understanding of key concepts related to climate change and learned how to approach its mitigation in a sustainable way. You will explore various technologies and strategies, along with their real-world limitations and challenges. In addition, you’ll learn about the vital role that climate communication and politics play in shaping public awareness and driving the behavioral and policy changes needed to address this global issue. Who is this course for? This course is designed for anyone interested in climate change and the transition toward a more sustainable future. As an introductory course, it provides essential knowledge to help participants understand the basics of climate change and explore practical tools for mitigating its impacts. The focus is on applying sustainable practices, technologies, and behaviors that reduce environmental harm—especially by avoiding increased energy consumption and the extraction of new natural resources. Open to all, the course welcomes a diverse audience from various backgrounds. Whether you're a student, professional, or simply a concerned citizen, you’ll find value in the engaging lectures, which feature scientific insights primarily developed at Linköping University.

The Course Sustainable Tourism in the Baltic Sea Region aims to provide a basic but comprehensive knowledge and understanding of the origins, applications, analyses and examples of Sustainable Tourism with a specific regional focus on the Baltic Sea. The course has both an interdisciplinary and interregional focus and is designed to give the learner a broad but still focused introduction to the topic with socio-political, economic and environmental viewpoints. The topics that will be covered in this course include the introduction of sustainable tourism, its stakeholders, challenges and theories. Numerous examples will be given, including cases and specific aspects of the topic. The course is a regional cooperation between many researchers across the Baltic Sea Region, including those from Sweden, Finland, Ukraine and Poland.  The course consists of four modules: -An introduction to Sustainable Tourism -Aspects of sustainable tourism -Sustainable spatial planning of tourism destinations -Examples from the field Upon completion of the course, students can request a digital certificate by contacting pontus.ambros@balticuniv.uu.se

The course introduces you to the basics of the Baltic Sea, with its fragile and unique environment. Taking the course will help to better understand how human impacts are changing its marine ecosystems, but also how one can best reverse the negative trends of its destruction. Whether you take this course in your own pace, or within your university, we invite you to take part of the different lectures, and do the assignments for each topic. We hope you will learn something new about our beautiful semi-enclosed sea in Northern Europe. The course is built up with five chapters, each covering a new theme in several sections. Evolution, physical description and climateLife in the Baltic SeaPressures and challengesEnvironmental managementExamples from the region and future outlook The course takes approximately 50 hours to complete and if fully completed, students can request a digital certificate upon completing the course.

Toxic substances in recycled products, “forever chemicals” in batteries, unknown health effects of rare earth elements are all examples of potential risks arising from the development of climate-friendly solutions. The urgency of climate change requests for new solutions at a very fast pace, with the danger of dismissing other threats that can become equally impactful. This reminds of the industrial revolution where thousands of new products were invented in a short time but at high costs for human health and the environment. Integrating today’s knowledge on chemical safety into the green transition can prevent the reiteration of such mistakes. This course examines the health and environmental impacts of chemical toxicants in the environment that have emerged from technological advancements, focusing on both historical and recently developed chemicals. Students will explore the origins, actions, and regulatory frameworks for known toxicants, alongside emerging risks of new chemicals. In parallel, students will be presented with real-life success stories showing how innovative approaches to technology development can address chemical pollution challenges and contribute to building a healthier green transition. Topics Historical perspective on environmental contaminants and their health effects New toxicological challenges emerging from recently developed chemicals  Mechanisms of action of specific classes of environmental contaminants Regulatory frameworks and agencies addressing chemical contamination Databases related to detrimental effects, safety, and use of chemicals Good examples of safe transitioning, showing consideration of toxicological aspects in the product development stage Course structure This course is fully digital with pre-recorded lectures. You can take part in the course in your own pace.   You will learn By the end of the course, you will be able to: identify major classes of environmental contaminants, describe diseases that are known to be produced by environmental contaminants, formulate questions about chemical safety in relation to chemicals with unknown effects, access and understand information related to health effects of environmental toxicants, broadly describe of regulatory frameworks and agencies related to chemical safety. Who is the course for? This course is designed for any person involved in the development of new technologies, products, or industrial processes, for example engineers from different areas, R&D scientists, or entrepreneurs.

With concerns about climate and global environmental changes, extreme events, and increases in social, economic, and political shocks, the concept of resilience is proving popular across a range of sectors as a way to understand and respond to our surprise-riddled world. This concept is now presented in a course led by the Stockholm Resilience Centre and the Centre for Complex Systems in Transitions and includes the latest research and practice on resilience. Resilience thinking includes the ability to persist in the face of challenges, adapt to new realities, or transform to fundamentally new paths for development. Resilience thinking is more than a theory, more than a set of tools. It is a way of seeing the world, offering a new perspective of how change in the world happens. Resilience thinking provides a new approach for building understanding and taking action in a complex world that is deeply interconnected and ever-changing. A world where controlled, planned approaches, existing knowledge and current solutions are not enough to effectively respond to the challenges in a highly dynamic and uncertain future. Addressing poverty, injustice, and inequality, and advancing human well-being remains a major ambition and challenge for the 21st century, and it now needs to consider that development will happen in a context radically different from the past. This course includes case studies and examples from practitioners who are working with resilience concepts in diverse contexts around the world. It is supported by strong scientific evidence and committed to being a platform to bring together and spark collaboration between individuals and organizations from around the world who are driven to transform development. This course is for: Development practitioners, policymakers and managers within development agencies around the world, as well as those working in the field with an interest in resilience thinking as it relates to development policy and practice.Students who are interested in the intersection of resilience, sustainability and development, and with a general interest in both local and global sustainability challengesAnyone with an interest in development, resilience thinking, and sustainability

This open online course offers you useful insights as to how cities can speed up the change. It looks at how something as simple as the physical layout of cities can impact their ecological footprint. It shows the city’s crucial role in support of renewable energy and energy efficiency, as well as how urban planning and transport planning can provide benefits that go well beyond just the environment. The course has a focus on the science, methods and tools needed to reach the 1.5°C goal and it taps into WWF’s expertise from over a decade of supporting urban climate action through the One Planet City Challenge. The course exposes you to examples of ambitious urban climate action and helps highlight which actions can be relevant in your city. This course is produced by WWF in partnership with Lund University. Learning materials include best cases which come from the cities across the globe that partake in WWF’s global initiative the One Planet City Challenge, a written assignment, quizzes and a course compendium. The course content is structured as follows: Module 1: Cities & Climate Change / 1.5°C alignment in citiesModule 2: Urban Planning & Policy: Getting this right for climate & people            Module 3: Renewable Energy in cities - Renewable Energy Solutions are crucial for cities to meet the 1.5°C targetModule 4: Energy Efficiency in cities  

How can we work with nature to design and build our cities? This course explores urban nature and nature-based solutions in cities in Europe and around the world. We connect together the key themes of cities, nature, sustainability and innovation. We discuss how to assess what nature-based solutions can achieve in cities. We examine how innovation is taking place in cities in relation to nature. And we analyse the potential of nature-based solutions to help respond to climate change and sustainability challenges. This course was launched in January 2020, and it was updated in September 2021 with new podcasts, films and publications. The course is produced by Lund University in cooperation with partners from Naturvation – a collaborative project on finding synergies between cities, nature, sustainability and innovation. The course features researchers, practitioners and entrepreneurs from a range organisations.   

This course has an English version. Look for course with title "Why choose wood for the next high rise building?" KursbeskrivningOlika typer av biomaterial (t.ex. trä) är mycket viktiga i utmaningen att avkarbonisera byggmiljön och minska koldioxidavtrycket för byggnader och infrastruktur genom att ersätta material som stål och cement som har höga koldioxidutsläpp. Samtidigt får vi inte glömma bort att biologisk mångfald, natur och sociala värden i våra skogar är viktigt att behålla samtidigt som skogsbruk bedrivs. I kursens 13 moduler tas skogsbrukets kretslopp upp inklusive avverkningsmetoder, biologisk mångfald, skogsskötsel, logistik, skogens roll i klimatomställningen, kolinlagring, miljöfördelar med att bygga flervåningshus i trä mm. Syftet är att ni som deltar i kursen ska få en gemensam förståelse av det svenska skogsbruket för att ni sen ska kunna fatta välgrundade beslut om materialval vid nästa byggprojekt. KursperiodKursen kommer att vara aktiv under 3 år. InnehållSkogshistoria: Skogens nyttjande i Sverige genom historienSkogsbruksmetoder och skogsskötselSkogsföryngringVirkets egenskaperMätning av skog och virkeSkogsträdsförädling: nutid och framtidSkogens kolbalans och klimatetAffärsmodeller och marknadsutveckling: Fokus flervåningshus med trästommarNaturvård och biologisk mångfald i skogen Kursens uppläggKursen är helt digital med förinspelade föreläsningar. Du kan delta i kursen i din egen takt. Modulerna avslutas med quiz där du kan testa hur mycket du har lärt dig. Du kommer få kunskap omEfter avslutad kurs kommer du att ha lärt dig mer om olika skogliga begrepp, förvärvat kunskap om skogens nyttjande i Sverige genom historien, ökat dina kunskaper om skogsskötsel och hur olika skogsskötselmetoder påverkar den biologiska mångfalden i skogen, lärt dig om skogsbrukets kretslopp – från föryngring till slutavverkning mm. Vem vänder sig kursen till?Den här kursen är tänkt för dig som är yrkesverksam arkiktekt, anställd på kommun som arbetar med stadsplanering och byggande, verksam i bygg- och anläggningsbranschen samt verksam i andra relaterade yrken. Detta är en introduktionskurs och kommer att bidra till en kompetenshöjning i hela byggsektorns ekosystem vilket ökar branschens internationella konkurrenskraft, samtidigt som det ger viktiga förutsättningar för utvecklingen av framtidens hållbara, vackra och inkluderande städer. Eftersom kursen är öppen för alla hoppas vi att fler grupper, exempelvis studenter, doktorander, skogsägare och andra med skogsintresse tar kursen, tar del av inspirerande föreläsningar där vetenskaplig kunskap som producerats huvudsakligen inom SLU presenteras.För mer information kontakta kurskoordinator dimitris.athanassiadis@slu.se  

Course start: October 1, 2025 Hydrogen is gaining importance as a sustainable energy carrier in the ongoing green energy transition. Wind power plays a decisive role in producing green hydrogen. Integrating hydrogen production directly into wind farms makes it possible to capitalise on fluctuating electricity prices while contributing to the stability of an increasingly renewable-based power system. This synergy creates opportunities for cost-effective hydrogen production, energy storage in the form of hydrogen, and enhanced grid flexibility. The course explores the concept of integrated wind/hydrogen systems, introducing technical, economic, and systemic aspects of combining wind power and hydrogen production into a robust, long-term, sustainable, and competitive energy solution Topics Introduction to wind energy development Wind power technology, wind energy, and grid connection Introduction to hydrogen: properties and application Methods of hydrogen production Hydrogen storage Wind energy onshore/offshore – hydrogen production systems Technical, economic, and regulatory opportunities and challenges for integrated wind/hydrogen systems Course structure  This fully digital course includes pre-recorded lectures, interactive webinars and Assignments. Participants can access the materials at their own pace, enabling flexible learning. Specific components like live Q&A sessions or seminars will be scheduled to enhance interaction and in-depth understanding.  You will learn Upon completion, participants will understand how wind power and hydrogen can be combined into an integrated energy system. They will gain insight into the technical, economic, and regulatory factors influencing the feasibility of pairing wind energy with hydrogen production. Additionally, learners will deepen their understanding of energy storage and grid flexibility and the role these elements play in driving the green transition.  Who is the course for? This course targets professionals in the energy and environmental sectors, including policymakers, project managers, engineers, and consultants interested in renewable energy, hydrogen, and sustainable energy systems. It is also suitable for politicians, public administrators, and strategists involved in sustainability initiatives and energy planning. The content can benefit researchers and software engineers focusing on green solutions and digital tools. While no extensive technical background is required, a basic understanding of energy systems and sustainability concepts is recommended. As an introductory course, this program outlines a path for continuous learning. After completing the course, participants can pursue a deeper specialisation in topics related to wind power, hydrogen production, and integrated energy systems.