Greening education: A Turkish university paves the way

Green energy has emerged in the modern era as a necessity, and not just an alternative anymore. Things like a ‘Green Campus’ or an ‘Environmentalist Campus’ are being given significant weightage in world university rankings. Many prominent international indices that rank universities have created specific scoring sections for this metric.

Several top universities around the world have already given a start to ‘Green’ initiatives, and Istanbul Medeniyet - founded in 2010 - has announced its groundbreaking plans to ‘green’ its education system. 

The university has started a presider project to establish a ‘Green Technopark’ as part of its ongoing projects and strategy in a bid to provide a sustainable and renewable education for its students and academics. 

Talking to TRT World, the chancellor of the university, Professor Dr. Gulfettin Celik, said, “We’ve prepared a long-term action plan to leave our young generations a sustainable, green, and comfortable future while greening the education with all aspects.” 

“The social responsibility offices founded in the West have already taken the form of ‘sustainability offices’ at our university. As the international indexes are being considered as an indicator of success and they include the green as another measurement method, the issue has become a key point of our university’s vision for the future as well,” he added. 

According to Professor Dr Yasar Bulbul, vice-chancellor of Istanbul Medeniyet University, without infusing sustainability awareness into all students, it is not possible to prepare comprehensive plans for the future. 

“To encourage our students in adopting such a plan, we’ve organised zero waste picnics, established stores in which recycled materials are being sold, started a greywater project, and converted our university into an application centre for all these projects,” Bulbul told TRT World. 

“In a place where the water and the future of the world do not exist, success will have no meaning. Our university is located at the heart of Istanbul and to reveal the fact that there is a solution for air pollution, we must first convert our university.”

Dr. Yasin Karagoz, who is among the top thousand of scientists according to Stanford University’s figures, said, “We are trying to design our Green Techno Park as per the Positive Energy Districts (PED) requirements. From managing water to producing electricity, we will only use renewable energy in this facility. The roof of it will be covered by solar panels and we will transfer the surplus to the main network.”

“By using greywater, we will be able to achieve saving up to 40 percent of our water. The waste will be used in producing coal gas through biogas reactors that can be used in heating and electric production,” Karagoz told TRT World. 

“The whole system at our technopark will be green, sustainable, and will be completed within two years.”

In addition to the green technopark project, Karagoz also said the university has focused on solar energy, wind power, and greywater usage which are all necessary to provide a green and environmentalist campus.

“To provide this environment we will soon convert the roofs of our arbours into solar panels so they will be able to charge the batteries of mobile phones and laptops. Besides, we will use mini wind turbines at the top of buildings and this will enable us to provide enough electricity for our needs.” 

“We have 6-7 patented projects as part of this project and started producing some of them already as part of this project,” he added. 

According to Karagoz, the university has already applied to 4 big-budget EU projects. 

“For instance, we have a project to convert natural gas boilers into hydrogen boilers to decrease the negative impact of burnt gas so there will be only water vapour. The project is worth €22 million ($24 million).”

On the other hand, Professor Dr Bulbul said that even at the department of gastronomy, students of the university “have started producing a fuel with waste oil that can become an alternative to diesel fuel”.

“Although the cost of renewable energy is more compared to the existing alternatives, it will help save the world in the future which is priceless,” Bulbul added. 

“The world is a gift for humanity. We must treat it better and deliver it to the next generations successfully. It all starts in education, this is what we are dedicated to doing so.”

Istanbul Medeniyet University has rapidly become one of the top 1,000 universities and top 300 young universities in the world according to Times Higher Education rankings.

Moreover, eight of its academics, from the departments of engineering to international relations, have been recently selected by Stanford University to be among the top 1,000 influential scientists around the world.