Keynote speech at International Sustainability conference given by EAUC Scotland Manger

Head of Programmes and Events and EAUC Scotland Manager Andrew Chamberlain delivered a keynote speech at the 10th Australian Campuses Towards Sustainability (ACTS) conference in Melbourne last month.

ACTS is the primary forum for sustainability in the Australian and New Zealand tertiary education sectors and the conference (theme: “Connecting Curriculum and Campus”) brought together sustainability leaders from higher education and government from across the world and heard from some of the sector’s most influential speakers.

Presenting on carbon reduction, Andrew Chamberlain drew inspiration from ‘How bad are bananas’ by Mike Berners- Lee which outlines the carbon impacts of everything from mobile phones to wine. Chamberlain extended the notion to illustrate that the historic focus of the FHE sector on reducing energy use and waste production ignores all these hidden carbon costs is merely doing ‘less bad things’ and, as acknowledged by HEFCE, is literally only half of the problem:

“Truly understanding and enhancing the positive impacts of an institution is by far a more innovative and ultimately more hopeful endeavor” Andrew Chamberlain, EAUC Scotland Manager

This related in particular to education, research and skills training.

Using the Universities and Colleges Climate Commitment for Scotland (UCCCFS) as an example, the presentation moved on to stress the need for more effective information transfer of best practice across the world. The conference was cited as an important step forward in making these crucial links if challenging climate change mitigation targets are to be met.

The EAUC and ACTS are taking great steps forward in terms of international collaboration and are happy to draw attention to the first ever Green Gown Awards Australia which closed for first round applications in September and whose results will be closely followed in the upcoming weeks and months.