Bocconi Wins the 2025 Green Award for Its Smart Waste Project
A campus that becomes a laboratory of sustainable innovation: with the project “Sustainability & Waste Recycling”, 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 initiatives in Italy, recognizes the university’s commitment to turning waste management into a replicable model of circular economy and applied everyday technology.
“This award is an important recognition of the teamwork we have carried out in recent years,” comments Giuseppe Sinatra, Director of Infrastructures, Sustainability & Facility Management at Bocconi. “Our goal was not only to reduce unsorted waste, but above all to make the university community more responsible and to experiment with solutions that could also become a model for other organizations.”
The project, launched in 2023, introduced modular, uniform, and easily recognizable recycling islands across campus, replacing the previous fragmented system. At the heart of the initiative is technology: smart sensors equipped with cameras monitor in real time the quantity and quality of the collected waste, while tablets installed next to the bins help students and staff dispose waste correctly, offering guidance and feedback.
Bocconi also eliminated individual office bins, launched awareness campaigns using gamification tools, and collaborated with AMSA on waste composition analyses and logistical consulting. The results are tangible: between 2022 and 2024, unsorted waste decreased from 160,000 to 130,000 kg, falling from 77% to 60% of the total, while recyclable fractions reached nearly 100% compliance. In 2024 alone, this translated into an estimated saving of almost 8 tons of CO₂.
In its statement, the award jury emphasized how the project, “despite its limited territorial and numerical scope, contains elements of excellence and innovation capable of influencing future decisions and different stakeholders.”
“We have shown that with a modest organizational and financial investment, it is possible to achieve concrete and replicable results,” added Sinatra. “Our next commitment is to extend the model to areas of the campus managed by external partners, such as cafeterias and halls of residence.”
With this recognition, Bocconi reaffirms itself not only as a center for education and research, but also as an actor capable of translating the principles of sustainability into daily, measurable practices.
ReCircle Bench is a circular seating area created with recycled material. It was made using the plastic from more than 1,000 wastebins collected from our University’s offices as part of "The New Number Theory" campaign. Wastebins have been replaced by new Recycling Areas, allowing the waste produced on the Bocconi campus to be disposed of effectively and efficiently. ReCircle Bench aims to be a meeting place and a symbolic circular space highlighting how every small gesture to protect the environment in which we live – from correctly disposing of waste to saving energy – can have a significant impact.
NANDO (from the diminutive of the name of King Ferdinand II of Bourbon who, already in 1832, regulated waste sorting) is an AI capable of recognizing types of waste from image recognition. This is possible thanks to plug & play sensors installed directly on trash bins and the NANDO.App.
