campus sustainability

Learning Goals

These are the learning goals for this weeks tutorial:

Use an ecological footprint tool to comprehend your personal impact on the planet, as well as thinking about its limitations.
Examine the Sustainability implications of the University – from the energy it consumes to the products purchased to what is taught and researched.
Explore campus sustainability strategies at ANU and other leading institutions, and formulate ideas for improving existing systems.

Preparation Instructions

The tutorial task follows on from Tuesday’s panel discussion on sustainability at a personal and campus level. The impact of our activities – at a personal, community, university or national level – is often represented by the metaphor of a “footprint” on the earth. This footprint represents how much of the earth’s area is needed to provide the resources we consume, and render our waste harmless.

To prepare for the tutorial:

You need to use the tool listed below to calculate your own footprint, and enter data into WebCT so that we can calculate the total footprint of the SRES1001 class.
You will then need to look at the strategies that ANU, NUS and Harvard University use to reduce their institutional footprint.

In the tutorial, we discuss what stops us from being “more sustainable”, and ways that we can overcome this to reduce our footprint, as individuals and universities.

reading

1) Your Personal Ecological Footprint

2) University institutional footprint

Go to
http://www.earthday.net/footprint/index.asp

Data to assist you with the footprint
Canberra’s Population: 325,800 (2006 Estimate)
Melbourne has the most similar climate to Canberra on the scale used

Fill out the Following Table, and enter the information into the Apollo quiz

Category	Global Hectares
Food
Mobility
Shelter
Goods/Services
Total
Number of Planets

Read

Sustainability Resources for Universities

Look at

ANUgreen – ANU’s environmental management program: http://www.anu.edu.au/anugreen
The ANU Sustainability Learning Community: http://slc.anu.edu.au
NUS Campus Sustainability Committee: http://www.nus.edu.sg/csc

And also

Harvard’s Green Campus Initiative– http://www.greencampus.harvard.edu
Yale Sustainability Portal
http://www.yale.edu/sustainability

questions For your one page

List some ways you can reduce your own ecological footprint.
List some of the resource inputs and waste outputs of universities that contribute to their overall footprint.
Write down 4 strategies that have put in place (compare at least 2 universities) to reduce their institutional impact. Do any of these strategies challenge social or institutional “norms”?
Come up with 2 of your own strategies of how ANU could reduce its footprint and enhance sustainability. Hint: The Sustainability Resource for Universities readings may come in handy to help you respond to this question!

NUS COLLABORATION

Following the tutorial, you will be required to collaborate with students from the National University of Singapore to discuss and develop ideas on this weeks topic. More information will be provided in the tutorial, and a link to information on how to collaborate will placed below on March 20.

Click here to view collaboration instructions