Pulp Explainer: USyd’s 2020 Sustainability Strategy

By Jossie Warnant 

Pulp breaks down USyd’s new Sustainability Strategy and what it means for students. 

What is the strategy?
USyd’s new Sustainability Strategy aims to deliver university based solutions to the environmental issues currently facing our society. Underpinning the strategy is the concept of “Caring for Country”, which places the knowledge of First Nations peoples as key to attaining long-term sustainability. The strategy has three pillars: enriching lives through research and education, enabling resilient places and a responsible footprint and empowering good governance and coordination. 

David Schlosberg, Director of the Sydney Environment Institute and member of the Sustainability Strategy Steering Committee, says that the strategy is “not just about hitting targets...It's about being able to really live the kind of values that staff and students have to be able to live.”

The strategy will replace USyd’s 2015 Environmental Sustainability Policy which Schlosberg says “was incomplete and not governed”. The strategy commits to some significant targets including sourcing 100 per cent of USyd’s energy from renewables by 2025, composting 80 per cent of food waste by 2025 and ensuring that zero single-use plastics are offered on campus by 2025. 

“I think where we landed on, on all of those targets, is really strong. It's really aspirational. There was nowhere where people said, let's just take the easy way out and go for a lower one unless there was a major obstacle there,” says Schlosberg.

How will the strategy impact the student experience? 
The strategy aims to create a “rich sustainability education” by making students more aware of the sustainability education offerings at USyd. These include promoting and encouraging students to engage in sustainability electives, broadening the range of Industry and Community Project Units (ICPUs) and OLEs linked to sustainability and offering a major and minor in sustainability.

Schlosberg says that the new sustainability major will not replicate the existing environmental studies major but will “be based around problem solving and real issues on food, water and energy, rather than around disciplines.”

The Sustainability Strategy also aims to create ‘Living Labs’ which will provide students the “opportunity to work with sustainability researchers across campus, across the disciplines and the faculties and schools on research projects that can be demonstrated on campus,” says Schlosberg.

The strategy will also see the campus shift to more sustainable practices such as sending zero waste to landfill by 2030, increasing recycling capacity and composting more food waste.

Does the strategy go far enough?
Despite ongoing protests by groups such as USyd Fossil Free and action by other universities such as The University of New South Wales, the 2020 Sustainability Strategy does not commit to divesting from fossil fuels. 

The document promises a review into the University’s existing investment portfolio and provide a recommendation to the University’s Senate by 2021 on “whether to supplement the existing approach with fossil fuel exclusions and/or increased impact investment”.

Schlosberg says that the investment subcommittee did not make as much progress as they wanted last year, but that divestment from fossil fuels is something “we’re still working on”. 

He says that he and others are working toward “an announcement before the end of the year.”

How has COVID-19 impacted the implementation of the strategy? 
The financial impacts of COVID-19 mean that USyd is unable to “invest in the immediate future in infrastructure changes as was originally envisaged”. The strategy will be limited on the operational side as the committee has been told to hold off on immediate investments, for example, plans to replace all lights with LED bulbs and retrofitting buildings. 

At this point, some of the planned timelines have been pushed back which means that “we’re front loading, the education and research, which is helpful because that’s the stuff that the students will see and be able to experience”, says Schlosberg. 

Due to a current hiring freeze, plans to create an Office of Sustainability are currently on hold. This means that the Sustainability Strategy is currently being run out of the Strategy Portfolio. Scholsberg says that this is part of his biggest concern about “making sure that we get the governance right.”

David Schlosberg will be moderating an online panel discussion regarding the strategy on September 9th at 11am.