UTS: Environmental Sustainability

Transcript for Patrick Woods Video

Hi, I'm Patrick Woods, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Resources here at UTS.

People everywhere are realising that the health and well being of our world is under threat and action must be taken fast.

In this website we are proud to share with you some of the important steps UTS is taking to be a role model of environmental sustainability and a test bed for new ideas innovation and change.

On this website you can find out what we're doing to reduce our ecological footprint.

Water conservation has been a priority.

UTS is growing but our sustainability projects are saving 37,000 kilolitres of water - that's more than 30 Olympic swimming pools - every year and a drop in usage of about 15%.

Our waterless urinals in a number of recent building projects are just one of the innovations helping us make these savings.

From January this year a proportion of our energy will come from GreenPower which obtains energy from the Lake Bonney Wind Farm.

More efficient lighting is going into all our buildings and motion detection lighting is being put into more spaces.

We are aiming for a six-star green rating for all our new buildings. Measures to increase the star rating in existing buildings are also being taken.

Few staff or students would realise that about 85% of our total waste output is recycled.

And by the way 85% of the recently demolished building T will be recycled.

Last year we recycled 250 tonnes of paper saving the environment about 5000 trees.

The list of recycling projects is the flipside of our increasingly green buying policies.

Before we make a purchase we consider the effects on the environment across a product's entire life cycle.

As a centre for research and learning, we are ideally placed to contribute new knowledge about how we can tread more gently on planet Earth.

We have dedicated research institutes focused on environmental sustainability.

Instead of "MAN AGAINST NATURE". These institutes are striving hard to understand how man can live as PART of nature.

Water, modern transport systems, energy and eco systems are some of the areas we are conducting research in.

UTS is committed to making a real difference in the world.

We are committed to leading the way in our sector.

It's a commitment we invite YOU to share.

By getting behind what UTS is doing, we can achieve our goals for an environmentally sustainable campus.

I invite you to return to this web site frequently to learn about milestones we've achieved and give us your feedback.

Enjoy your visit.