Sustainability at Silkeborg Højskole
At Silkeborg Højskole, sustainability is not just a talking point – it is a common awarenes and a series of active everyday decisions. Our overall strategy is to be sustainable, mindful, and learning-oriented.
We have made a choice
We’ve made choices for you as a student that ensure you have a low CO₂ footprint while staying at the folk high school. You’ll most likely never notice it as a lack of something better — we’re just doing things smarter.
When you’re standing at the lunch buffet, it’s easy to make a sustainable choice. When you turn on the light, it doesn’t use much electricity. And 40% of the power you use comes from our solar panels on the roof.
Inspiration for sustainable living
Through our shared daily life and in teaching, we also talk about what really makes a difference if we want to live more sustainably — both in relation to the climate and to other people.
We also strive to inform and inspire, so that you as a student are as well prepared as possible to reflect on the choices you’ll face in life after your stay at the school. But we also take action.
Among other things, we’ve taken the following initiatives to make the school more sustainable:
- Technology that helps reduce heating in the rooms
- Solar panels on the roof covering 40% of the school’s electricity consumption
- Conversion to LED lighting
- No use of pesticides on the school grounds
- Reduced use of district heating water
- Environmentally friendly cleaning products
- Sustainable materials in new buildings
- Organic Bronze Certification in the kitchen (30% organic products)
- Reduction of food waste
- Climate compensation for our air travel through DanChurchAid
- Social responsibility: we employ several people in flex jobs and offer internships to individuals in job training programs.
Travels
When we travel by plane, we travel with purpose
No matter where we’re going, we prepare carefully so we can understand the place we’re visiting. We’re not just going on a holiday — we’re going on a journey of learning and personal growth.
We also do our best to plan our trips in the most climate-friendly way possible. Whenever we can travel by train or bus, we do so. But we also offer trips to destinations where, within the timeframe of a folk high school stay, flying is the only practical option.
We believe that to truly understand the world, you need to see and feel nature, foreign cultures, and the injustices that exist. It’s all connected. That’s why we accept flying when it’s the only way.
In the Ecology course, students gain knowledge about sustainability, focusing on the areas where they themselves can make a difference and have influence. We take a closer look at our consumption habits, problematic chemicals and additives, product labeling, and how to read ingredient lists. This equips students to make choices that are good both for themselves and for the climate.
In the Outdoor Life course, we also aim to help students build a relationship with nature by being in it and learning about it — so that nature isn’t something we go out into, but something we enter into. This is the first step toward a new view of nature, where it’s not just a resource but something we admire and value.
In the Beer Brewing course, students gain a greater awareness of how different foods and beverages are produced.
As a teacher, I make a point of buying the most environmentally friendly ingredients for the beer. An important part of the teaching is also discussing where the beer you find in supermarkets has been transported from — and what it means for the climate whether you buy beer from Funen or from the United States.
In addition, the school café has invested in polycarbonate glasses to avoid single-use plastic cups.
Teacher, Rasmus Simonsen
