Sustainability is all about meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. The concept of sustainability is composed of three pillars: economic, environmental, and social—also known informally as profits, planet, and people.
In the RIT2021 project we strive to include sustainability in everything we do and some of our activities are pronounced sustainability activities. Below we describe three of them:
1. Women in Space
Woman in Space is a network for woman working in the space community, initially in the town of Kiruna. Since the pandemic forced us to go online, women from other places are warmly welcome to join us as well.
We have had a couple of meeting in Kiruna, initiated by the project RIT2021 to get things started. We are still discussing the goal and agenda so in time this will be clearer. Come join us if you are interested to get to know more woman colleagues in the space business. Our invitations for meetings are found in our list of upcoming events.
The 17 goals within Agenda 2030.
2. Space improves life on Earth
Thanks to technology, space has become more easily accessible and more and more players see space as an enabler both in exploring space but also in exploring the earth and improving life on our own planet.
Using sophisticated technology, space can contribute to solutions within UN’s 17 SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals within Agenda 2030
The RIT2021 project works with sustainability in different ways and we focus on social and environmental aspects.
Environmental aspect The PhD students within RIT2021 have been looking at the environmental aspect of their work respectively. They used a special tool for self-assessment of the impact on global goals in order to identify: Positive effects (opportunities), Negative effects (risks) and Lack of knowledge.
The footprint of the PhDs projects.
3. Five webinars about sustainability within Aerospace
The webinars are part of the PhD/industry course “Sustainability for Aerospace Applications” which gives 4 HEC (4 higher education credits). The course gives an overview of United Nations Development Program’s (UNDP’s) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and tools to assess and develop towards increased sustainability for aerospace applications research and development and innovation (R&D, R&I) projects. Read more here.