I have now been in Brisbane and working at Griffith University for 5 years. I really enjoy it. Griffith has a vibrant community, offers excellent opportunities and makes a genuine effort to improve individual, community, national and global imperatives – and Sustainability Week is a case in point.
This week is Sustainability Week at Griffith University.
It just so happened, I was teaching 1205MED Health Challenges in the 21st Century (x 3 tutorials) today at the Gold Coast campus, which coincided beautifully with the first of Griffith’s Sustainability Week events.
Hooray!
The Library Lawn had a range of stalls set up from 10-2pm to kick off their Sustainability Fair.
My two favourite stalls were the pedal-powered smoothie stall (of course!) and the Native flora stall.
While I was there, the pedal-powered smoothie stall was busy and was attracting some good attention – that was until it started raining! Oh no!
I had a chat with the native plant stall representatives and got some lovely native seedlings to plant in the garden (Thanks so much!).
I chose colourful bushy bird attractors. This stall was also spruiking the award-winning app GroNATIVE, which is the brainchild of Prof. Catherine Pickering, a Griffith academic I really admire.
Other Sustainability Week events on offer include:
- I Made Your Jewellery – an ethical jewellery stall
- The Sustainability Fair (GC) including an array of stalls and meet-and-greets
- Ghosting: A workshop with artist Pamela See: The Pod QCA Library
- Griffith Library Lightning Talks: Waste Wars
- Circular Economy – whose responsibility? Eco-Centre presentation
- ….and others
Griffith’s Commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals
‘To be a sustainable university’ is one of the five key goals identified in the Griffith 2020 strategy that sets the direction for the University.
Griffith University is a signatory to the United Nations Global Compact and has signed up to Sustainable Development Solutions Network Australia/Pacific (the Universities Commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals).
This means that Griffith University agrees to:
- support and promote the principles of the Sustainable Development Goals
- undertake research that provides solutions to sustainable development challenges
- provide the educational opportunity for our students to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development
- contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals by ensuring our campuses and major programs are environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive, and
- report on our activities in support of the Sustainable Development Goals
Even though it was a little stormy and rained towards the end, I was happy that such events occur on campus. It is important that we keep sustainability at the forefront of our daily routines, thoughts and actions.
I am glad to work for an organisation that makes a concerted effort to highlight – and redress – some of the biophysical issues we face.
It was great to see more bikes on campus being used to promote a more green and positive approach to transport, food (well….in this case, smoothies) and academic life in general!
Go Gold Coast Campus! Happy Sustainability Fair!
