NEW ZEALAND: Universities yet to lead on environment

All New Zealand universities are making efforts to address sustainability issues but none has yet committed itself to becoming carbon neutral and the sector is not taking a leadership role in efforts to address environmental issues.

University annual reports show to varying degrees the initiatives institutions are taking to reduce their impact on the environment and to increase their teaching and research related to environmental matters.

The University of Canterbury, for example, last year reviewed its sustainability plan, and also developed a proposal for an expanded recycling scheme and drafted a transport plan. Massey University introduced free buses to get students to and from its Palmerston North campus, met energy efficiency targets at all three of its campuses, and had an extensive recycling operation.

Though such initiatives have obvious environmental impacts, they also have financial benefits: Victoria University of Wellington environmental manager Andrew Wilks says the 17,000-student institution saves about NZ$100,000 (US$75,620) a year from energy efficiency measures. A shift to double-sided printing of all paper-based materials resulted in a 40% reduction in paper consumption across the university and a further $100,000 saving.

Wilks says air travel is a big source of carbon emissions for a university in a country as isolated as New Zealand. But commuting by students and staff is even bigger and the university has introduced measures to encourage greater use of public transport. In total, the university's annual carbon footprint is equivalent to about 5,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide - and it would be 4,000 tonnes higher but for its use of electricity from a carbon-neutral supplier.

Despite efforts to date, the university's managers last year decided against moving to become carbon neutral because of the financial costs associated with buying carbon credits - currently valued between $10 and $25 per tonne.

And therein lies a failure on the part of New Zealand universities in the view of Victoria University professor of policy studies and acting director of its Institute of Policy Studies, Jonathan Boston. He says it is significant that no New Zealand university has committed to becoming carbon neutral although a range of New Zealand businesses have.

Boston adds that New Zealand's universities have made an important contribution to research, teaching and debate on issues of climate change and sustainability. But in many cases they have been responsive rather than taking a leadership role.

"If we take climate change, it's been an issue of global importance for 20 years but it's only the last four or five years that universities have really begun to give this some serious attention," he says.

Boston has published and organised a range of seminars and conferences on climate change and related issues in recent years. He argues that universities have four key responsibilities in this area:

"They have a responsibility to provide leadership in research on critical environmental issues; a responsibility to provide high quality teaching on relevant environmental issues; a responsibility in my view to be the critic and conscience of society in alerting the wider community to the issues they face and how those issues should be responded to; and a responsibility to provide leadership to the rest of the community on how organisations should behave with regard to management of their resources."

Though individual researchers have contributed strongly to environmental issues and research over the years, universities as institutions have some ground to make up.

* John Gerritsen is editor of NZ Education Review
john.gerritsen@uw-news.com