2025 PRME Education Award

The Sustainability Action Booster (The Booster) at Aalto University is a pioneering initiative that places student agency at the center of advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and responsible management education. Launched in 2023, the Booster responds to students’ growing demand for actionable, hands-on opportunities to contribute meaningfully to sustainability, complementing formal academic pathways.

The Booster supports student-driven projects through a low-threshold, fast application process for expense grants. This funding model empowers students to take initiative in designing and implementing tangible sustainability actions across campus and beyond, placing ownership and responsibility directly in their hands. Students lead and execute projects independently, guided by their own ideas and values, which promotes a deep sense of agency, hope, and purpose.

This model directly advances competences for sustainability (target 4.7), and wellbeing (target 3.4). Through the unique contents of individual projects, it contributes to numerous other SDGs as well, including climate action (SDG 13), biodiversity protection (SDG 15), sustainable consumption and production (SDG 12), and inclusive community building (SDG 11).

Beyond contributing to actual sustainability improvements, we believe that the Booster's support scheme for extracurricular activities enhances student learning throughout the entire process. It fosters various key sustainability competencies essential for responsible management, such as collaboration, integrated problem-solving, communication, implementation, and ownership and management of projects. This, in turn, empowers students, fostering a sense of meaningful agency and hope.

One of the most distinctive features of the Booster is its emphasis on inclusiveness and interdisciplinary collaboration. Students from all six Aalto University schools; Business, Arts & Design, and four Engineering schools participate, bringing together diverse disciplinary expertise and backgrounds to co-create impactful solutions. This integrated approach responds to the complexity of sustainability issues and reinforces the importance of cross-sectoral cooperation in responsible management.

Additionally, with around 70% of grant applicants being international students, the Booster fosters global perspectives within the university. It supports the integration of international degree and exchange students into Finnish society and the working world, while also cultivating a supportive and diverse student-led sustainability culture. This level of inclusivity reinforces responsible management values of equity, diversity, and global solidarity.

Finally, the Booster’s emphasis on process; valuing the experimentation and collaboration involved in sustainability work as much as the final outcomes, models a reflective and iterative approach to leadership. Students are encouraged to take risks, learn from setbacks, and continuously improve, which mirrors the adaptive mindset required in responsible management roles.

Through this integrated, student-led model, the Sustainability Action Booster not only contributes directly to the SDGs but also shapes future leaders with the competencies, values, and mindset to drive sustainable transformation in any field.

The Sustainability Action Booster (The Booster) promotes student skill development through an impactful, student-led model that centers learning in real-world sustainability action. At the heart of this approach is the belief that meaningful learning occurs when students are empowered to lead, collaborate, and create in a supportive environment that values experimentation and inclusivity.

By offering students a flexible expense grant and a simple, accessible application process, the Booster removes common administrative barriers and puts the focus on the students’ creativity and initiative. Projects are fully student-driven from ideation to execution —enabling participants to experience all stages of project ownership. This fosters key transferable skills such as time management, budgeting, problem-solving, and project implementation.

A standout feature of the Booster is its role in cultivating sustainability competencies that go beyond the classroom. These include collaborative leadership, systems thinking, communication, adaptability, and the ability to deal with complexity and uncertainty. Students working on Booster-funded projects are often required to collaborate across disciplines, navigating different working styles and perspectives to co-create solutions. This interdisciplinary teamwork develops negotiation, active listening, and cross-cultural collaboration skills—essential capabilities for any career in the 21st century.

The diversity of the student body further enhances this learning. With a high share of international participants, students benefit from interacting with peers from different cultural, educational, and professional backgrounds. This not only builds cultural intelligence and empathy but also strengthens their ability to work in international teams; critical in both sustainability and business contexts.

Many projects also involve stakeholder engagement outside the university, including NGOs, startups, and local initiatives. As students take their ideas into real-life contexts, they practice professional communication, strategic thinking, and impact evaluation. These experiences offer a taste of entrepreneurial learning, where iteration, feedback, and pivoting are part of the process.

Students often report feeling a stronger sense of purpose and belonging as a result of their involvement. By leading sustainability initiatives that reflect their values, they gain confidence and agency that are critical personal development outcomes that support long-term engagement and leadership in sustainability. The Booster's inclusive and supportive community nurtures psychological safety, which in turn encourages bolder ideas and fosters resilience.

Furthermore, by employing student interns to assist in running the Booster we ensure student-focus and easy to approach procedures. Involvement in the development and communications side of the Booster enables additional learning paths. Interns gain insight into sustainability communications, community engagement, strategic planning, and visual storytelling, further expanding their professional toolbox, and ensure that students' perspectives remain at the center of the project and are continuously developed.

By valuing both the learning process and outcomes, the Booster avoids the pitfalls of top-down, outcome-only initiatives. It fosters a growth mindset, where bold experiments and failure are seen as part of innovation and exploration. This approach to learning by doing builds lasting skills that students carry with them into their future careers, whether in business, academia, public service, or entrepreneurship.

In short, the Sustainability Action Booster supports holistic skill development: technical, social, emotional, and ethical, and prepares students to lead sustainability transitions across sectors and geographies.

The Sustainability Action Booster (The Booster) offers a replicable and scalable model for universities seeking to engage students in meaningful sustainability work while advancing the Sustainable Development Goals and responsible management education. Its strength lies in its simplicity: by providing low-threshold, flexible micro-grants for student-led projects, the Booster enables rapid action and innovation without bureaucratic overhead.

Key to its effectiveness is the trust placed in students. The Booster empowers them to define, lead, and implement their own sustainability actions, providing not only funding, but also a supportive ecosystem of guidance and visibility. This advances student ownership and initiative, while promoting a culture of experimentation, collaboration, and peer learning.

The interdisciplinary and inclusive nature of the model—open to students from all fields and with a strong participation rate among international students—demonstrates its value in building community and integrating diverse perspectives. It is particularly suited to institutions aiming to promote cross-campus engagement and address challenges related to student integration and global learning.

The Booster’s alignment with SDG 4.7 and its focus on cultivating sustainability competencies makes it an especially valuable addition to the wider responsible management education toolkit. It complements formal learning with transformative, experiential education.

Because the model is lightweight, cost-efficient, and adaptable to different contexts, it can be easily adopted or adapted by other institutions seeking to foster sustainability agency among students. It also encourages collaboration between sustainability staff, faculty, and students, reinforcing shared ownership of sustainability goals.