QUT takes action on sustainability

Professor Wilson will present strategic management and recommendation on embedding sustainability into QUT’s technique, coverage, analysis and training.

QUT Vice-Chancellor Professor Margaret Sheil mentioned the college was already doing an incredible deal to advertise sustainability, however the PVC workplace would assist to combine and elevate these efforts.

“Professor Wilson will make connections throughout and past the college, in order that our sustainability analysis and partnerships inform our teaching programs and campus operations and vice versa,” Professor Sheil mentioned.

Professor Wilson mentioned sustainability is about looking for a harmonious relationship between individuals and the planet.

“Sustainability means performing thoughtfully and responsibly, all the time contemplating the impression of our choices on different individuals, different species and future generations,” she mentioned.

“Sustainability impacts each side of our lives – meals, water, clothes, buildings, vitality, transport, waste. It must be a precedence for each particular person, each organisation and each nation.”

Professor Sheil has additionally launched the QUT Sustainability Action Plan, which units out the actions that may allow the college to turn out to be carbon impartial by 2030 and hyperlinks QUT actions to the 17 United Nations Sustainable Improvement Targets.

“The QUT Sustainability Motion Plan contains actions starting from new methods to cut back waste, guarantee irrigation and exterior cleansing makes use of 100% non-potable water, encouraging the usage of sustainable transport choices, to actions round local weather response within the type of adaptation and resilience to excessive climate occasions,” mentioned Geoff Dennis, Govt Director of QUT Services Administration.

“QUT additionally has a contract in place to make sure 50 per cent of vitality will likely be sourced from the Columboola photo voltaic farm as a part of our technique to succeed in carbon neutrality.”

QUT Blueprint 6, launched in 2019, made Sustainability and the Setting considered one of QUT’s seven strategic priorities, sending a transparent sign that the college desires to play a major function in shifting Queensland, Australia and the world onto a sustainable path.

QUT is the one college in Australia with a Professional Vice-Chancellor function devoted to sustainability. QUT additionally has a Sustainability Supervisor in its Services Administration division and a large community of educational {and professional} workers implementing totally different points of its Sustainability Motion Plan.

Professor Kerrie Wilson is considered one of Australia’s main environmental scientists. Her analysis has been revealed in excessive impression journals corresponding to Nature and Science and she or he has acquired quite a few nationwide awards, together with the Prime Minister’s Prize for Life Scientist of the 12 months, the Australian Academy of Science Nancy Millis Medal for Girls in Science and an Australian Museum Eureka Prize for Excellent Younger Researcher.

Earlier than becoming a member of QUT in 2019, Professor Wilson was the Director of the Australian Analysis Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Environmental Selections and an ARC Future Fellow at The College of Queensland.

QUT has a number of interdisciplinary analysis centres tackling environmental sustainability issues, together with centres targeted on agriculture and the bioeconomy, clear vitality, the atmosphere, waste, robotics, supplies science, information science and future enterprise.

These centres are supported by analysis amenities, pilot vegetation and area websites that undertake environmental monitoring, evaluation and modelling and develop and trial cutting-edge applied sciences and processes. Different analysis centres and teams at QUT are investigating the environmental, social, financial, authorized and political dimensions of sustainability.