The Assessment of the Potential of "Green" Economy Technologies in Higher Education Institutions
In: Moscow University Economics Bulletin, Band 2015, Heft 5, S. 68-88
Promotion of "green" economy, that assumes increasing of the population welfare, social justice and improving of environmental quality, is one of the most important trends in the development of many countries including Russia. For our country building of "green" economy is also linked to the modernization and breaking with export-dependence on raw materials. Higher education institutions could contribute to the development of this process: traditionally both in the world and in Russia at universities environmental initiatives could be implemented and future environmental leaders could grow. To speed up the transition to of "green" economy we have proposed an approach "University as a model of "green" economy". It is based on the possibility of developing, testing and further replication of "green" technologies at universities – in the areas of energy efficiency, waste management, eco-friendly transport, etc. We carried out the analysis of the pilot projects in the field of "green" economy – two cases of separate waste collection: in the Main building of Lomonosov Moscow State University (LMSU) and the LMSU branch in Sevastopol. We conclude that there is a significant potential of the implementation of "green" technologies for the development of "green" economy and for the development of universities themselves.