AASHE recently published its second issue of its AASHE Bulletin: Global Edition, and I wanted to take a moment to note a few that were particularly interesting to me. 

First, a story from an Australian AASHE member -

Macquarie U Plans to Engage Staff in Sustainability Projects*
Macquarie University (Australia) has announced a four-point plan for staff sustainability engagement in 2010. The goals of the staff engagement plan are to increase understanding and awareness of sustainability throughout the University, embed sustainability into governance, and to create a culture in which staff are proud of their environment. The plan includes interaction will all new staff about the sustainability vision, goals, and objectives; the establishment of a Sustainability Representative Network comprised of sustainability champions for all departments and faculties across campus; the creation of sustainability competitions between campus departments; and the creation of sustainability committees.*

This is a perfect example of Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS) PAE credit 14: Sustainability in New Employee Orientation.  I'll admit that I do not work directly on AASHE's Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS), so it is certainly possible that there are institutions in the U.S. and Canada doing this type of thing, but I can say that I have not come across a lot of faculty and staff sustainability education through my work on the AASHE Bulletin.

Next, a story from a remote college in Australia -

Scotch College Taps into Solar Power*
Scotch College’s (Australia) remote Kyre Campus on Kangaroo Island has been without electricity until now. The College has installed a ZEN Freedom solar power system that will provide much needed power to the campus where students go to study sustainability and marine biology. The system has been designed to match solar energy generation with energy demand at the campsite and demonstrates to students via both the internet and local network all the environmental data that impacts the amount of energy generated by the system.*

As an American, it's difficult for me to imagine that an entire campus could run without electricity at all.  It's even more "powerful" that this campus has gone from net zero to net zero. Technology is truly amazing!

And now, a story from India -

NIIT U Builds Campus to Harvest Rainwater*
NIIT University (India) has inaugurated its environmentally-conscious 100 acre, 54-building campus. The campus was built to harvest and recycle 95 percent of waste water and some buildings have been designed not to use air conditioning.*

There is certainly one advantage to building a campus from scratch - you can do it with sustainability principles in mind. I wonder, however, if NIIT University chose to harvest rainwater because it wanted to be more sustainable, or if harvesting rainwater is a necessity in their part of the world.  I'm certainly not an expert in Indian climate, so hopefully one of our faithful readers will be able to fill me in.  

And finally, a spotlight on an upcoming event:

5th International Barcelona Conference on Higher Education*
November 23-26, 2010; Universitat Politècnica de Cataluny; Barcelona, Spain
The fifth International Barcelona Conference on Higher Education "Higher Education's Commitment to Sustainability: from Understanding to Action" is designed to deepen the conceptual definition of the lines of change in higher education to respond to the challenges of sustainability as well as to identify ways for action. Both topics will facilitate the transition between existing and new educational scenarios consistent with the vision of the sustainability paradigm to move from understanding to action. The Conference will offer a collective work dynamic and active participation. With this methodology, the Conference will include parallel working sessions in two areas: the first will be a dynamic space for exchanging experiences and good practices to analyze how the world regions are advancing with the introduction of sustainability; the second will be a work space where participants will discuss and propose ways of action that contribute to the transformation of higher education. Registration is now open. The deadline for proposal submissions is May 31, 2010.*

This international higher education conference has chosen to focus on sustainability this year.  How inspiring is that!!??   My wish is that, despite all of the travel restrictions, some of you will get to attend this event.  And when you do, I encourage you to write to AASHE and let them know what you learned.  Perhaps you could even turn it into a blog post!

On a final note, I would like to encourage all of you to read through our first two issues of the AASHE Bulletin: Global Edition. For me, reading and writing the stories puts our U.S. and Canadian campus sustainability initiatives into perspective.  Not only is it helpful to know that people around the world are working on issues similar to us, it's also helpful to know what kinds of issues they are tackling.  Some are advanced, and some make us realize how lucky we are.  Also lucky for us, many folks out there do speak English, so feel free to contact them if you'd like to try to copy one of their initiatives.

It's easy to get caught up in the day-to-day of our sustainability initiatives - so take a break and take a look at the big picture.