University eco-campus: world experience and Russian dynamics

There is a certain gap in Russian research and generalization of the world experience in the development of eco-campuses, as well as in the analysis of Russian practices to see how the issues of greening campuses are understood and implemented by Russian universities. The paper is designed to fill this gap. The first part of the paper explores the leading models of eco-campuses implemented in the world. Based on the features identified, the main components of the eco-campus are aggregated, and strategies of greening universities are identified. The second part of the paper is devoted to the analysis of environmental practices of Tomsk State University (TSU). This study is intended to determine which constituents of the eco-campus model are already being applied in TSU, and to outline possible strategies for further development in order to comply with world practices in this field. As world practice shows, universities create eco-campuses to achieve several goals that range from the creation of a comfortable and sustainable campus environment to the achievements of the leadership in promoting the principles of sustainable living being an example of how these principles can be implemented. Tomsk is often called a "university city" due to the presence of six large universities in it. This title suggests a more advanced, innovative development of the whole city, which should be provided by the spillover of knowledge from universities to the "city", the prevalence of highly skilled employees with a large share of scientific and technological personnel in it. Due to the fact that Tomsk universities have urban, not suburban, campuses, their synergy with the urban environment is quite high, which means a high degree of influence of the university on the development of the whole city. TSU actively uses various practices to interact with various stakeholders in the field of environmentally sustainable development, but they are not implemented systematically, which reduces the effectiveness of this interaction significantly. The initiatives of TSU have a great innovative potential and can contribute to the formation of a "green" infrastructure, ensuring the improvement and "green" development of the city and the region as a whole. However, for the full-scale use of this potential, TSU needs to develop a systemic and operational strategy, which allows creating a full-fledged eco-campus and become a driving force in the processes of developing a "green" city.

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