Bocconi wins Green Award 2025 for smart waste project

A campus that becomes a laboratory of sustainable innovation: with its "Sustainability & Waste Recycling" project, Bocconi University has won the Blue & Green Economy Award 2025, promoted by Comunicazione Italiana in the environmental category. The award, which each year celebrates the most advanced sustainability experiences in Italy, rewards the university's commitment to transforming waste management into a replicable model of circular economy and technology applied to everyday life. "This award is an important recognition of the teamwork we have carried out over the last few years," commented Giuseppe Sinatra, Director of Infrastructures, Sustainability & Facility Management at Bocconi. "Our objective was not only to reduce undifferentiated waste, but above all to give the university community a sense of responsibility and to experiment with solutions that can also become a model for other realities".

The project, launched in 2023, introduced modular, homogeneous, easily recognisable ecological islands on campus, replacing the previous fragmentation. At the heart of the initiative is technology: intelligent sensors equipped with cameras monitor the quantity and quality of the waste collected in real time, while tablets installed next to the bins help students and staff to dispose of waste correctly, offering suggestions and warnings.

Bocconi has also eliminated individual waste bins from its offices, activated awareness-raising campaigns with gamification tools, and collaborated with AMSA on product analyses and logistics consulting. The results are tangible: between 2022 and 2024, undifferentiated waste dropped from 160 thousand to 130 thousand kg, from 77% to 60% of the total, while recyclable fractions reached levels close to 100% compliance. In 2024 alone, this translated into an estimated saving of almost 8 tonnes of CO₂ .

In its motivations, the award jury underlined how the project, "while having a limited territorial and numerical impact, contains elements of excellence and innovation capable of influencing future choices and different subjects".
"We have demonstrated that with a limited organisational and economic investment it is possible to obtain concrete and replicable results," added Sinatra. "Now our commitment is to extend the model also to the areas of the campus managed by external partners, such as canteens and residences".
With this recognition, Bocconi confirms itself not only as a training and research centre, but also as a player capable of translating the principles of sustainability into everyday and measurable practices.