What we're doing
The University of Sydney is the size of a small town, with almost 50,000 students and more than 7000 staff.
So it's no surprise that we use a lot of energy and water to support the huge range of learning, teaching and research activities here. To have zero emissions would mean we are doing nothing.
We working to improve our University-wide performance in areas such as carbon emissions, water use and waste generation. We've changed our purchasing practices, and are encouraging car pools and videoconferencing to reduce travel-related emissions.
But there are so many things we can do at the local level. Our Sustainable Workplace program encourages staff to become active contributors to conserving natural resources in our working environments.
A small grants scheme encourages staff to introduce local sustainability projects that, cumulatively, can have a major impact on our environmental performance. Every little step counts – from worm farms to reusable coffee mugs.
Cutting emissions
Heating, ventilation and cooling together account for around half of the University's direct energy consumption so it's critical we look at how we can reduce emissions.
Since 2009, a high-profile group has brought together experts from our research and administrative units to devise and implement solutions to cut our carbon footprint. The Emissions Reduction Working Group, brings together experts from a wide range of fields, including energy management, accounting, climate law and architecture and oversees the University’s Energy Savings Action Plan, as well as the reporting requirements of the National Greenhouse Reporting Scheme.
What have we achieved?
- Major new buildings completed as part of the University's Campus 2010 project use state-of-the-art energy-efficient technologies such as chilled beam air conditioning. The Sydney Law School received an award for sustainable architecture in the Australian Institute of Architects' 2009 awards.
- We are constantly looking for ways to reduce IT-related emissions. Staff are encouraged to reduce energy usage linked to their personal computers while our data centre makes use of 'virtual servers' to reduce the number of standalone physical servers, cutting power and cooling costs.
Water savings
The University uses a volume of water equivalent to an Olympic-sized swimming pool every two days.
We've taken on this challenge, and in recent years, the University has managed to substantially reduce our water use despite growing student numbers and research activity.
What have we achieved?
Major capital works have seen the construction of buildings and open spaces that use world-class and innovative water savings measures.
For example, a stormwater harvesting and treatment system collects rainfall run-off from nearby roads, paths, tennis courts and buildings which is then filtered through specially designed soil and plant systems and collected in underground tanks for reuse, potentially saving up to 80 percent of potable water demand in our new buildings.
The Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources is working with our Campus Infrastructure Services unit to monitor the performance of the systems in order to make recommendations about expanding the uses of the water and how the system should be managed.
- In July 2009, the University of Sydney received the Stormwater Industry Association (NSW) Award for Excellence in Stormwater Management and Initiatives for these stormwater harvesting and re-use systems..
- This followed a NSW Government Energy and Water Green Globe Award for a series of initiatives that saved more than 1.2 billion litres of water from 1994 to 2006.
Cutting waste
There are a range of initiatives across the University to cut waste generation and increase recycling rates.
What have we achieved?
- Our electronic waste recycling service has recycled around 140 tonnes since it launched in 2006.
- We are rolling out new Envirobank machines, which improve our recycling of aluminium and plastic containers.
- Every year we around 2000 cubic metres of green waste is recycled into compost for reuse on the University's grounds and sporting fields.