Engagement is the key to having people understand and
embrace a sustainability plan.
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| MLA Ellen Sandell. |
A forum on Thursday in the Lowe Theatre at the University of Melbourne’s Redmond Barry Building was set up with just that aim.
The forum, “What is the plan” had the aim of explaining what
was happening at the university with regard to sustainability and within that
hoped to engage and wide range of people.
The Lowe Theatre had a seating capacity of 172 (it was noted
on the door) and before the event the university’s Sustainability Manager,
Danielle Rostan-Herbert, said some 200 people had intended to attend, but about
20 seats were empty.
The challenge of engaging such a broad range of people over
the many campuses that make up the university was acknowledged as was the task
of explaining the role and need of sustainability within the university.
Many aspects of what is intended by the plan were explained
from the mechanics and role of the process by the vice-principal of
administration and finance at the university, Mr Allan Tait, through to what it
means for students from Student Union Environment Representative, Ms Anisa
Rogers.
Master of ceremonies for the forum, Greens MLA for Melbourne and former University of Melbourne student, Ellen Sandell, introduced the other
speakers, Postgraduate Environment Network president, Ms Michelle Wilson;
Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute representative and atmospheric
scientist, Professor David Karoly; senior lecturer in business ethics, Dr Ben
Neville; and representing the Fair Food Challenge, Ms Sophie Lamond.
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| Anisa Rogers - she talked students and sustainability. |
Introducing the speakers, Ms Sandell reminisced about her
time at university and when she was the student union environment officer back
in 2007 when, in her words, “Was quite involved back then in pushing the university
to be better on issues like sustainability.”
She said she was thinking about what has changed and what
has stayed the same over the 10 years since then.
“A lot has changed, but I’m sure many of you would share my
despair at how much has actually stayed the same,” she said.
Ms Sandell talked about how much momentum there was about
climate change at the time as when she was the student union environment
officer, Al Gore had just released his famous movie, “Inconvenient Truth” and
climate change had come to global prominence and Kevin Rudd had said he would
sign the Koyoto Protocol and the 2007 election was fought largely on climate
change.
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| Vice-principal of administration and finance, Allan Tait. |
She said there was a lot of momentum, but it seemed that ten years
later “we have indeed gone backwards.”
“We have no real climate change plan at a federal level, emissions are rising year on year and we seem to break global temperature records year on year as well and so a lot of us might be feeling a little despondent and I can fully understand that as I’m one of them.
“When you have an absence of national leadership it is
incumbent on other institutions, Local Government, universities, State Governments
to rise up to the challenge and say if our Federal Government won’t take
action, we will, let’s start and take action at a local level and show the
leadership that is so sorely needed,” she said.
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| Atmospheric scientist, Prof David Karoly, speaks at the University of Melbourne sustainability event. |
Mr Tait explained the history and purposes of the university’s
sustainability plan to see it recognized as a leader and an institution that
has embedded sustainability in all its operations, teaching, learning, research
and engagement.
“We really need your input” he told those are the forum.
He said the consultation period will run through to June and
people can contribute their thoughts and opinions online at the Sustainability
website.
University anthropologist, Han Baer, used question time to
first point that flying was among the fastest growing contributor to carbon
emission and second, that many academics he knew flew regularly and so was
eager to know who that would be dealt with under the sustainability plan.
Mr Tait said it was obviously an important issue in reducing
not only the university’s carbon footprint, but in cutting generally the world’s
carbon emissions.
He said he did not have a specific answer, but knew it would
arise during discussions about the university’s general operations. “It’s part
of the process, it’s part of the puzzle,” he said.
David Karoly said it was a “very, very important question” and
it is something the university had tried the think about, but it was in fact
excluded, academic travel in the target that the university set in reducing
emissions by 50 percent by 2010, it decided not to include academic travel as
it was too hard.
“But it isn’t too hard, it can be and there are a range of
processes including the facilitating video conferencing and telephone
conferencing and requiring certifiable and reliable carbon offsets for every
carbon mile that’s travelled and charge that activity to the staff member that
travels,” he said.
However, Prof Karoly pointed out that there is another
faster growing source of emissions than flying and that was IT technologies and
the “cloud”.
He said the explosion the IT and its demand on electricity
for charging your phone, cloud computing and “things like that” are an even
fast growth globally than air travel and yet we all want to have as much use of
cloud computing as possible.
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| Representing the Fair Food Challenge was Sophie Lamond. |
A question about how students would be engaged brought an
answer from Mr Tait about how that would be approached from an official point
of view and Ms Wilson, who said she had only found about sustainability charter
in passing conversation and it had been “quite hard” to find much detail.
Prof Karol outlined what has been happening at the
university in recent years pointing out that in 2007 the University Council
agreed on major sustainability initiatives reducing the carbon footprint across
all university activities, including in principle, academic travel, but that
got excluded for some reason, the whole carbon footprint had to be reduced by
50 per cent by 2010.
And, he explained, the council agreed to a carbon neutral
university by 2030, but, as he pointed out by suggesting people run a straight
line, “we should now be at least 60 per cent below 2006”.
One questioner suggested there was more to sustainability
than carbon dioxide emissions and asked about whether or not various service providers
to the university were being encouraged to reduce their use of plastics, noting
that there will soon be more plastic in our oceans than fish.
Mr Tait acknowledged the questioner’s concerns, but pointed
out that various laws prohibited the university from directing what those firms
who hire various spaces on different campuses can and can’t sell.
People keen to know more about the process can find addition
information at the university’s websites that discuss sustainability, the
charter and consultation.
