Last year enviro kids got the Uni to agree to set up a working group focusing on how the uni can reduce its emissions. The group is finally up and running as a result of long term student pressure. Yay! It includes 2 students reps who have been long involved with enviro, some cool academics, and representatives from uni council, business and the community.
The working group recently had its first meeting and came to the grand conclusion that climate change is a reality. They’re meeting again next week and will focus on what the uni can do to address climate change. Meetings are closed but the student reps are going to try and get approval for the Enviro collective to address the group at their next meeting.
Newie has also been creating awareness and getting more students behind their campaign.
They had an exciting climate change infoday. They had a procession with drums, bikes and yellow shirts which descended upon the uni’s big café at lunchtime with lots of chanting (raise the pressure, lower the heat and such) and spreading the clean energy word. Infoday also included a talk with Pete from Rising Tide and Claire Dunn talking on moving from climate change despair to empowerment, short films and food. And it conveniently ended just before collective time so there were a a good 30 people at the meeting.
And they’re going to keep up campaign visibility and pressure on campus with things like stickers and posters. And radical cake stalls sharing clean energy propaganda along with the baked goods.
Wednesday, 11 April 2007
UNSW
Haven’t been actively lobbying the uni lately but have been doing much more exciting things for climate publicity and awareness instead.
Have recently run a few workshops with green geeks, another great group on campus, on things such as solar and how to do environmentally friendly D.I.Y. sort of stuff. And had a climate change forum with around 60 people.
Their energy manager (who has been really cool and come up with some great energy strategies) is leaving. Students will be meeting with him before he goes and have already set up a meeting with his replacement.
Enviro collective is also currently working with bigswitch, who are targeting retrofitting and energy efficiency on campus. They’re working on how to get students to hold up their role in the project.
Representatives from the enviro collective are on the Environmental Policy Advisory Committee (EPAC) and are pushing for a separate energy committee to be set up.
And finally they are doing lots of thinking about where they’re at and where to go with the clean energy campaign.
Have recently run a few workshops with green geeks, another great group on campus, on things such as solar and how to do environmentally friendly D.I.Y. sort of stuff. And had a climate change forum with around 60 people.
Their energy manager (who has been really cool and come up with some great energy strategies) is leaving. Students will be meeting with him before he goes and have already set up a meeting with his replacement.
Enviro collective is also currently working with bigswitch, who are targeting retrofitting and energy efficiency on campus. They’re working on how to get students to hold up their role in the project.
Representatives from the enviro collective are on the Environmental Policy Advisory Committee (EPAC) and are pushing for a separate energy committee to be set up.
And finally they are doing lots of thinking about where they’re at and where to go with the clean energy campaign.
Tuesday, 10 April 2007
UNI of QUEENSLAND
Geoff Dennis (head of UQ P&F and chair of TEFMA - http://www.tefma.com/) has said that he has some money he'd be willing to spend on a "case-study" type project at UQ. He suggested the Union complex, large building..for onsight renewable, energy efficiency, & green-power purchasing. Said he would be willing to pay for a student to co-ordinate it. We;re now developing a 2nd proposal that explains the need for an Energy working group (paid proffessionals + student rep's) to co-ordinate such projects but also to have researching and proposal-writing capacity...if we could get this off the ground, it would be a concrete step towards getting larger projects n committments... our climate working group is expanding (but so far consist only of females!). we're having regular meetings and are planning a big strategy meeting for 30th March (day b4 Earth Hour) where we aim to get as many people as possible to attend at the Great Court. Some new ppl are already on board (incl post-grads, great to get their perspective to we can be more inclusive!) and we've decided our campaign name is "UQ Climate for Change" (UQCfC) thought that might stick in their minds! trying to make it big in terms of people involved, but keeping it simple at the same time.
BALLARAT
a) what type of climate stuff is going on at your campus (e.g. discussions, stalls, campaigns etc.) - initial chats about setting up a collective, getting climate active and campaigning for clean energy
b) what plans you have for this semester - getting people involved, hosting a regional forum and training so we can learn from the experiences of others and run an effective campaign, taking action locally.
c) any recent developments - the Manager of the National Centre for Sustainability reckons the university won't cut consumption by 20% or buy 20% Green Power - and he's supposed to be an ally! Doesn't matter, we can do it!
d) any pieces of advice you wish to impart! - keep up the great work!
b) what plans you have for this semester - getting people involved, hosting a regional forum and training so we can learn from the experiences of others and run an effective campaign, taking action locally.
c) any recent developments - the Manager of the National Centre for Sustainability reckons the university won't cut consumption by 20% or buy 20% Green Power - and he's supposed to be an ally! Doesn't matter, we can do it!
d) any pieces of advice you wish to impart! - keep up the great work!
MELBOURNE UNI
WHAT WE'RE ASKING FOR
So, basically Melbourne Uni purchases 5% green energy and the energy contract isn't up for renewable until 2008 or 2009. So what we've done is lobby the university to purchase RECs (Renewable Energy Certificates) from the non-profit organisation 'Green Switch'. This way they can effectively purchase green energy on top of their existing contract, and it is actually cheaper as AGL and Origin charge extra for green energy whereas Green Switch only charges a minimal admin fee, as it's non-profit. As far as we are aware, when you buy green energy from AGL or Origin, etc, they just buy RECs on your behalf - so we are effectively side-stepping the middle-man. Please advise us if you think we are wrong on this!!
WHAT WE DID
We (the Climate Change Collective, a group of about 6 to 8 students) have taken our proposal for the uni to buy around $2 million worth of RECs (about 80 giga watt hours, the equivalent of what the uni uses in one year) to the VC. He basically said, "I will only listen to you guys if you get your proposal approved by the uni's Environment Advisory Committee". So we took it to them (we have an undergrad student rep on the committee and support from the postgrad rep and a staff member). They pretty much said "no - you think this is the magic bullet for reducing carbon emissions but we need to take a 4-step approach which includes reduction in energy, education and culture change, carbon abatement and purchasing green energy and blah blah blahdy blah".
So... bascially they were all talk and no action! They think buying green energy isn't the most cost-effective method of reduce the uni's carbon emissions.
They also were a bit confused and didn't really know what RECs were and how they worked.
WHERE TO FROM HERE...
The next meeting is in 2 months and we are hoping to work on the members of the committee individually to try to explain the proposal to them and get their support. We have a commitment from a main guy on the committee to ring Green Switch and discuss it with them.
There is some energy in collective to do a general awareness campaign of climate change amongst students, so hopefully we can take that on as well as all the committee stuff.
We would also like to focus on the union building and see if we can get them on side, and maybe try to target colleges on campus.
We have been having stalls and getting students to sign a petition saying they support clean energy on campus. We have also been giving out badges and brochures about our campaign. Hopefully by the next Environment Advisory Committee meeting we will have a groundswell of student support. We are also currently redrafting our proposal to answer some of the concerns that the committee had.
The main problems we are coming up against are that the committee thinks buying green energy is too expensive and money would be better spent on retrofitting buildings to reduce energy use. We are unsure how to overcome this.
Hope that wsn’t too detailed for you. Hope it was useful.
Ellen
So, basically Melbourne Uni purchases 5% green energy and the energy contract isn't up for renewable until 2008 or 2009. So what we've done is lobby the university to purchase RECs (Renewable Energy Certificates) from the non-profit organisation 'Green Switch'. This way they can effectively purchase green energy on top of their existing contract, and it is actually cheaper as AGL and Origin charge extra for green energy whereas Green Switch only charges a minimal admin fee, as it's non-profit. As far as we are aware, when you buy green energy from AGL or Origin, etc, they just buy RECs on your behalf - so we are effectively side-stepping the middle-man. Please advise us if you think we are wrong on this!!
WHAT WE DID
We (the Climate Change Collective, a group of about 6 to 8 students) have taken our proposal for the uni to buy around $2 million worth of RECs (about 80 giga watt hours, the equivalent of what the uni uses in one year) to the VC. He basically said, "I will only listen to you guys if you get your proposal approved by the uni's Environment Advisory Committee". So we took it to them (we have an undergrad student rep on the committee and support from the postgrad rep and a staff member). They pretty much said "no - you think this is the magic bullet for reducing carbon emissions but we need to take a 4-step approach which includes reduction in energy, education and culture change, carbon abatement and purchasing green energy and blah blah blahdy blah".
So... bascially they were all talk and no action! They think buying green energy isn't the most cost-effective method of reduce the uni's carbon emissions.
They also were a bit confused and didn't really know what RECs were and how they worked.
WHERE TO FROM HERE...
The next meeting is in 2 months and we are hoping to work on the members of the committee individually to try to explain the proposal to them and get their support. We have a commitment from a main guy on the committee to ring Green Switch and discuss it with them.
There is some energy in collective to do a general awareness campaign of climate change amongst students, so hopefully we can take that on as well as all the committee stuff.
We would also like to focus on the union building and see if we can get them on side, and maybe try to target colleges on campus.
We have been having stalls and getting students to sign a petition saying they support clean energy on campus. We have also been giving out badges and brochures about our campaign. Hopefully by the next Environment Advisory Committee meeting we will have a groundswell of student support. We are also currently redrafting our proposal to answer some of the concerns that the committee had.
The main problems we are coming up against are that the committee thinks buying green energy is too expensive and money would be better spent on retrofitting buildings to reduce energy use. We are unsure how to overcome this.
Hope that wsn’t too detailed for you. Hope it was useful.
Ellen
SYDNEY UNI
For more on our campaign check out our own pretty blog at http://greencampusnow.org
We've had a bit of a slow start this year. Right now we're re-strategising and trying to figure out what its gonna take to win this campaign.
But we did have a hott climate info day. Despite only advertising it a couple of days in advance it was pretty successful with a forum on 'Real and False Solutions to Climate Change', a vegie BBQ, stalls, a presentation on the history of our clean energy campaign and a screening of 'An Inconveinient Truth'. And the day before we had a joyful bike ride with yellow shirts around campus to keep the campaign visible and promote Climate infoday. There is so much interest in climate change at the moment, the question now is how to turn concern into action.
We also had a strategy session last week and honed in on four campaign focuses for the semester:
1. Mobilising and empowering students to get active on climate change through the clean energy campaign.
2. Keeping up the nasty business of lobbying University decision makers. But being really clever and knowledged up while we do it.
3. Exposing the links between our University and the fossil fuel and nuclear industry. We think vested interests are one of the reasons our uni is so reluctant to go green.
4. Politicising climate change. Thinking about the braoder idea of what its going to take to stop climate change, what barriers there are in our society to stop this happening and making links with oither on campus campaigns to build a cross collective student movement.
Hmmm now we just have to turn the strategy into super tactics and win (finally).
UTS
UTS has agreed to set up a Sustainability Task Force with a paid, part-time coordinator. The enviro collective is currently negotiating to get students a voting position on the decision making body.
There are also working groups being set up to take charge of water, energy, recycling, curriculum etc. They’re not yet sure if it will be voluntary or compulsory to have a student rep on each working group, but either way there will be student involvement.
The collective wants to ensure these moves are not just token and that the new groups operate effectively. It may take a bit of time to get things up and running and making changes but UTS enviro kids are pretty optimistic. Yay!
There are also working groups being set up to take charge of water, energy, recycling, curriculum etc. They’re not yet sure if it will be voluntary or compulsory to have a student rep on each working group, but either way there will be student involvement.
The collective wants to ensure these moves are not just token and that the new groups operate effectively. It may take a bit of time to get things up and running and making changes but UTS enviro kids are pretty optimistic. Yay!
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