Protecting the Future: Stories of Sustainability from RMIT University

By CSIRO PUBLISHING

Protecting the Future showcases tangible examples of the practical implementation of global sustainability and the triple bottom-line plus one (comprising environmental, social and cultural economic and governance dimensions) in the scholarship and operations of RMIT University. These practical initiatives, applications and methodologies can provide information and inspiration for individuals or organisations wanting to implement global sustainability principles in their planning and operations.

Global sustainability is one of the fastest growing concerns around the world. Organisations of all kinds are increasingly aware that their future may well depend on their ability to create solutions to economic, environmental, social and cultural as well as governance issues.

• Language: English
• Publisher: CSIRO PUBLISHING
• Release date: Oct 26, 2004
• ISBN: 9780643099517

Book preview

Introduction

Sarah Holdsworth and Tricia Caswell

Transformation of the atmosphere, hydrosphere and cultural landscape since the industrial revolution has resulted in the emerging global recognition and pursuit of sustainable development.

Global sustainability is one of the fastest-growing concerns around the world. Demands for greater accountability and transparency are increasing daily from government, corporations and civil society. Globalisation and revolutions in communication and information have driven the emergence of global networks and the quest for global knowledge. Greater environmental and social awareness is pressing leaders, citizens and communities alike to view the future in very different ways. Organisations of all kinds are increasingly aware that their future may well depend on their ability to create solutions to economic, environmental, social and cultural as well as governance issues.

Over the past 50 years societies have begun to recognise that they are not isolated from the environment; the relationships are interrelated and complex. This reinforces the idea that humans and the environment are interdependant and that human domination does not ensure social and industrial advancement.

The ideals of sustainability and sustainable development pose many challenges for today’s society, including the clarification of language, meaning, authority and legitimacy. The terms themselves are contested – ‘sustainability’ and ‘sustainable development’ mean different things to different people – but economic, environmental, social, cultural and governance dimensions emerge from their definitions and provide pathways to begin to understand the key emerging, leading-edge ideas, practices, dynamics and trends. Sustainability and sustainable development are dynamic concepts that will continue to evolve and grow as we begin to appreciate the complex and interrelated nature of the challenges they pose.

The social and environmental consequences of traditional development programs are being questioned. This has resulted in a fundamental shift in global politics. Ideas of development and economic growth that enhance social and environmental well-being have emerged from rigorous debate and discussion within the international community. Under the auspices of the United Nations, international political frameworks have evolved which actively promote the development of the sustainability agenda and its implementation globally.¹

In 1972 the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment was held in Stockholm, Sweden. The international community met to consider the global environment, the effects of industralisation, and development needs. The conference exposed the beginnings of a rift between the developed and the developing world’s exploitation of natural resources in a way that not only degraded the environment but also perpetuated the unequal distribution of wealth.

In 1983 the United Nations created the World Commission on Environment and Development as an independent body and appointed Dr Gro Brundtland as head. In the Commission’s report, Our Common Future² we find the seminal definition of sustainable development, as development ‘that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’.

The report demonstrated the fundamental links between environmental, economic and cultural concerns, and called for the reordering of global priorities. Economic, social and cultural and environmental dimensions are interconnected, with intragenerational and intergenerational consequences. The concept of sustainability includes social reform. It acknowledges the need for a reorientation of the international community towards the balancing of economic viability with ecological health and human well-being.

The 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development, or ‘Earth Summit’, explored how the planet’s environmental problems are linked to economies and to social justice issues. Some historic achievements at the conference included the development of the Rio Declaration, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Framework Convention on Climate Change and a plan for achieving Sustainable Development, Agenda 21. These initiatives publicly acknowledged that sustainable development was advancing as the central principle for planning and action for the future, recognising the primary place of the environment, the planet and its ecosystems.³

Ten years later, the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg in 2002 reaffirmed many of the decisions and texts adopted at Rio. It reconfirmed an expanded global commitment to sustainable development. It also heralded the inclusion of many diverse sectors of society like business, industry and social justice groups not active in past earth Summits.⁴

Universities and their role in sustainability

Universities can play an important role in working towards a sustainable future by educating present and future generations about the relevance of sustainability issues to their particular disciplines and potential careers. Immense potential exists for the education sector to align itself in all aspects of its operations – infrastructure management as well as its core business of teaching, learning and research – with a vision of global sustainability.

Universities have the opportunity to teach future professionals to engage in activities that sustain rather than degrade the environment, enhancing our communities and overall well-being, living within the limits of natural systems.

Universities play a crucial role in creating and disseminating knowledge, skills and values that can influence policies and practices in government, companies and NGOs, shaping the society in which we live.⁵

Universities are places with unusual and diverse relationships with and among students, staff, business, government and community organisations at both local and international levels; universities are thus well positioned to comment on, question and challenge ideas, to develop new ideas and to encourage innovations in relation to an emerging field of knowledge. Working within the pursuit of a sustainability vision means critical engagement with the concept, tracking how it could be implemented and measured.

Universities comprise their own unique communities, founded on traditions of scholarship and research. However, they also operate within a broader societal context and have the potential to contribute to the social dynamism, economic security and environmental sustainability of the communities with which they interact.

But universities are institutions bound by tradition founded in disciplines mostly hundreds of years old. Their reputations and those of their scholars depend on disciplines with longstanding boundaries and credentials. These traditional disciplines, together with outdated inflexible structures and systems, contribute to the lack of university engagement with issues concerning sustainability, which are complex and cross over traditional boundaries. Consequently, much of the leading scholarship around sustainability has been developed outside universities in purpose-built institutions and organisations that have the flexibility to adapt to multi-disciplinary considerations and responses to sustainability.

In order to move beyond traditional academic paradigms and disciplines we need a greater emphasis on collaboration and cooperation. We need thinking that is systemic and multidisciplinary. This is no threat to the existing disciplines – we need their history and depth – but we must also work across and sometimes outside and around them.

Sustainability challenges require multidisciplinary responses, but collaborations of this nature are not the norm in universities. Cross-disciplinary approaches require a deep cultural shift. Whilst this is difficult to achieve it could lead to profound institutional change.

Universities can and do achieve much more than their traditional scholarship. All parts of the university system are critical to achieving change. Universities are large physical institutions with many buildings and services to run. Their architecture and the way they use resources have many impacts across all dimensions of sustainability. There are trends for more and more universities to use sustainability principles and practices in all their physical operations.

One of the ways to capture people’s understanding, commitment and action in their professional and personal lives is through storytelling. Storytelling is an ancient and traditional way of passing on all sorts of complex, multifaceted information and ideas – information and ideas that are not easily captured, categorised or shared by formal methods of storing and are not referenced.

There are many different styles of stories. In this book, we present stories that share the knowledge and experiences of RMIT staff; stories that communicate the issues, ideas and progress that we face in the development and application of sustainability in RMIT and elsewhere. The authors of these stories reflect on sustainability, sometimes professionally, sometimes personally, sometimes both, in their own individual voices.

These stories help us to explore and define how we might collaborate – work together – to make a difference inside RMIT no matter what our formal role might be. We hope others can learn from our experiences, and that our stories can inspire and edify. As Anthony deMello suggests in one of his one-minute meditations, ‘… the deepest truth is found by means of a simple story’.⁶

This collection of stories from RMIT University describes ways in which academic and operational staff have examined their working and personal lives and reflected on their contribution to a sustainable world. We hope the stories provide insights into how we can individually and collectively translate knowledge into action in pursuit of sustainability.

Stories on teaching and learning explore:

how to teach students about issues of sustainability in regional Victoria, Australia

how teaching engineering students about sustainability concepts affected their understanding and led to a shift from traditional teaching methods to a more innovative and interactive approach

what changes would be needed in engineering curriculum to incorporate sustainability and how such change might impact on programs and graduate capabilities across the faculty

how RMIT Hamilton, an educational, research and cultural centre, was established to provide the south-west of Victoria with a sustainable teaching and learning model, to conduct regional research, and to include international and urban students as part of its community engagement

how an innovative education project was designed to engage disconnected and marginalised homeless youth who frequent the Melbourne CBD.

In relation to research and innovation we have present:

a story about a partnership between RMIT, an engineering firm and a salt producer in north-east Victoria demonstrating and potentially commercialising a novel system using solar ponds to generate heat and produce commercial quantities of salt, thus reducing salinity in local soil

the personal and professional experiences of an RMIT fashion designer and lecturer that have led to the exploration and development of a sustainable design and teaching methodology

thoughts on how artists can make explicit and provide us with a means to understand significant contemporary issues like sustainability. Visual arts and creative writing provide links across the global community. Ways, means and objects related to sustainability were showcased in the RMIT global sustainability exposition ‘The Piece and the Practice’⁷

a story describing how unsustainable practices and ecological crises can only be understood if an interdisciplinary community-centred approach is adopted

reflections on the quest to understand ideas and translate them into practice in the teaching of sustainable building design, using the real-life case of a civic centre as a focus.

Stories in the operations and infrastructure area describe:

the development of the RMIT Vietnam campus in Ho Chi Minh City as a potentially sustainable facility providing environmental, economic, educational and social benefits to the people of the region

issues faced by RMIT Property Services Groups responsible for aging infrastructure at a time when Environmentally sustainable design are being promoted, illustrated by a building renovation on RMIT’s city campus

a story about how campus-greening initiatives are gaining momentum in universities worldwide, and how student enthusiasm for rubbish, recycling and problem solving has helped to drive environmental change at RMIT since the 1990s.

EF Schumacher, the celebrated author of Small is beautiful and founder of the Intermediate Technology Development Group, posed a challenge for educators when he wrote: ‘Education which fails to clarify our central convictions is mere training or indulgence. For it is our central convictions that are in disorder, and, as long as the present anti-metaphysical temper persists, the disorder will grow worse. Education, far from ranking as [our] greatest resource, will then be an agent of destruction.’⁴

In working on and teaching about sustainability, the contributors to this book of stories have risen to Schumacher’s challenge.

References and further reading

Brundtland report, see World Commission on Environment and Development. de Mello A, ‘One minute meditations’, Spiritwalk, no date, viewed 21 May 2004, .

Global Sustainability Institute, RMIT University, <http://www.global.rmit.edu.au/>.

Schumacher EF, Small is beautiful – a study of economics as if people mattered, Harper, New York, 1973.

World Commission on Environment and Development 1987, Our common future (the Brundtland report), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1987.

Notes to the Introduction

1 Kelly, T, ‘Building a sustainable learning community at the University of New Hampshire’, The Declaration 6(2), 2003: 18–25.

2 World Commission on Environment and Development, Our common future (the Brundtland report), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1987.

3 For more information on the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development see . The World Conferences: Developing priorities for the 21st century – briefing papers home page.

4 For more information on the 2002 UN World Summit on Sustainable Development see the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Division for Sustainable Development website .

5 Cortese, A, ‘The critical role of higher education in creating a sustainable future’,Planning for Higher Education, March–May 2003: 15–22.

6 Excerpts from de Mello’s meditations and other writings are available on the Spiritwalk website at (viewed 21 May 2004).

7 ‘The Piece and the Practice’ was held on 16–22 October 2002. To find out more about this and about the ‘triple bottom line plus one’ approach, visit RMIT’s Global Sustainability Institute website at .

8 EF Schumacher, Small is beautiful – a study of economics as if people mattered, Harper, New York, 1973, p. 94.

1

Learning about sustainability in the field:

‘Farming the Future’

Amaya Alvarez and Judy Rogers

Photo: Jessica Benjamin

Over a long weekend 45 students from across RMIT University in Melbourne leave the city for a four-day field trip into rural Victoria.

Developing and teaching an RMIT University elective course, ‘Farming the Future’, about sustainability in rural Victoria, we found ourselves shifting from an investigative approach using practical, on-the-ground examples of implementation to an interpretative approach exploring the multiple ways in which sustainability is contested and understood.

Developing an interpretative approach to ‘Farming the Future’

Farming the Future is an elective course taught at RMIT University. Students need to complete two of these electives as part of their undergraduate degree. The aim of the electives program is to provide students with opportunities to customise their degree to reflect their own needs and interests.

Framed by the concept of sustainability, this elective was designed as a way of engaging students in ‘real’ socio-environmental problems. Farming the Future, as the name suggests, is intended to give students insights into issues facing and challenging the future of farming and land management in rural Australia. The specific objectives of the course are to develop:

an awareness of the complexity of the term ‘sustainability’

an awareness of some of the complexities involved in land management strategies at micro (farm implementation) and macro (legislation and funding) levels

an ability to critically evaluate differences in land management practices – e.g. native animal reintroduction and habitat preservation versus herbicide use for primary production – by identifying the values of diverse interest groups

an ability to assess the viability of integrating habitat rehabilitation with primary production

an understanding of how and why land use dictates infrastructure change within a community

an understanding of the idea of ‘degradation’ and how it relates to production.

Over a long weekend 45 students from across RMIT University in Melbourne leave the city for a four-day field trip into rural Victoria. The initial focus of these trips was to apply definitions and concepts of sustainability to real world problems and issues: the students would explore whatever environmental or social issue – such as salinity, land degradation, water management or rural decline – seemed the most pertinent for people on the land. Within the investigative approach we had adopted at the outset, the role of the teacher is to provide information and assist in structuring the investigation of real world problems. Consequently, we provided students with a definition of sustainability and identified ‘real world’ field examples for them to investigate, to find out how sustainability, as we had already defined it, was being implemented in a particular community or region.

Initially, then, we tried to frame the experience as an investigation of ‘what was going on out there’.

What kept emerging, however, were anecdotes, arguments and narratives – i.e. interpretations. These made it increasingly clear that, at the local level, what is considered by some in the community to be ‘sustainable’ is often seen by others to be the opposite.

This shift to an interpretative approach occurred over a number of field trips. (The field trips have been running for over five years now and there have been 15 trips in that time.) It happened partly in response to the way in which students reacted to the messiness of the issue on the ground. Many felt ill equipped to investigate what could not be pinned down to one definition or a straightforward explanation – ‘Here is sustainable farming’ – and partly through the interrogation of our own teaching, finding ourselves unable to provide the background or context to explain their responses. Initially we started to reframe the questions we were asking them to explore, from ‘In what ways are these sites sustainable?’ or ‘How are farmers responding to sustainability issues?’ to ‘How is sustainability understood here?’ and the more difficult ‘Sustainability of what and for whom?’ We now begin from the position that sustainability is not self-evident and are explicit about this. What we are exploring are multiple