Environmental Concerns In Campuses

Ce travail de Master est une recherche prospective qualitative qui porte sur les enjeux du triptyque « agriculture, alimentation et ville » appliqué au cas du campus de l'Université de Lausanne (UNIL) en Suisse. La place et l'avenir de l'agriculture en zone à bâtir sur le campus de l'UNIL sont questionnés. Une dizaine d'entretiens semi-directifs, d'un atelier de réflexion, de documents d'archives et d'autres sources écrites, ont été les outils sollicités dans ce travail. Après l'exploration des paramètres actuels et les acteurs engagés dans la transition agro-alimentaire durable sur le campus, cette recherche aboutit sur des recommandations et une ébauche d'appel à projet. Ces résultats sont destinés au Dicastère Durabilité et Campus pour renforcer et compléter les démarches existantes ainsi que pour donner un nouveau sens à l'agriculture sur le campus.

<em>The school is every child's second home and safety is everyone's business. The best safety effort will involve all aspects of the child's school, including classroom instruction, school services, and school climate. The focus of this study was to assess the critical safety concerns of Bauan Technical High School, Batangas, Philippines as perceived by the senior high school students. Schools are expected to comply with all applicable laws, rules, and standards relating to safety. The study determined the gender and age of the respondents. It also assessed the perception regarding school critical safety concerns along with the school policy, comprehensive safety plan, school building, school grounds, procedures in handling visitors, emergency communication, transportation rules and accident procedures, illegal activities, respect for persons, and getting help. Among the 10 safety concerns, handling visitors was observed to a very great extent while illegal activi...

ABSTRACT:
Banks and financial institutions can play a major and decisive role in these global efforts to make our planet a better place to live in. As providers of finance, banks can ensure that businesses adopt eco-friendly activities. Incentives by way of offering cheaper funds for adopting green technologies will have a long term beneficial impact on the environment. As major implementers of technology, banks themselves can adopt green practices and thereby lead the way in this global initiative. Also, product and service innovations and leveraging on the use of technology enable banks and their customers today to reduce the usage of resources such as paper, thereby aiding in environmental protection. Offering cheaper funds for adopting green technologies will have a long term beneficial impact on the environment. As major implementers of technology, banks themselves can adopt green practices and thereby lead the way in this global initiative.

Recycling practice is important in forming sustainable campus community. Unfortunately, recycling has not been widely practice by Malaysian. Government target of achieving 22  percent in recycling by 2020 could become faking truth, compared to Thailand, Singapore, Japan and China. This paper explore responds on community of Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang campus on recycling practice toward sustainable lifestyle with recycle bins are colour coded to differentiate the category of waste. The result indicates positive responds but a need to rigorously change attitude in recycling to the campus community.

Under the remit of an expanded definition of sustainability – one that acknowledges animal agriculture as a key carbon intensive industry, and one that includes interspecies ethics as an integral part of social justice – institutions such as Universities can and should play a role in supporting a wider agenda for sustainable food practices on campus. By drawing out clear connections between sustainability objectives on campus and the shift away from animal based products, the objective of this article is to advocate for a more consistent understanding and implementation of sustainability measures as championed by university campuses at large. We will draw out clear connections between sustainability objectives on campus and the shift away from animal based products. Overall, our arguments are contextualised within broader debates on the relationship between sustainability, social justice and interspecies ethics. We envisage that such discussion will contribute to an enriched, more r...

Emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) associated with buildings may constitute as much as 40 percent of total emissions by the United States. Data on GHG emissions for 238 institutions, including doctorate granting universities, master's institutions, and baccalaureate colleges, were acquired from the American College & University Presidents' Climate Commitment (ACUPCC). A regression model that included gross building area, July mean temperature , and January mean low temperature was used to predict GHG emissions (R 2 = 0.911). A similar model was developed for emissions as a function of full-time equivalent (FTE) students, but the fit was poorer (R 2 = 0.693). The percentage of coal in the energy source for electric power generation was also a factor, with higher percentages resulting in higher emissions. Institutions with high percentages of coal as their electricity source also experienced low Janu-ary temperatures, making it difficult to distinguish the effects of energy source from winter climate. For doctorate-granting universities, emissions scaled with gross building area with an exponent of ~1.1, indicating that emissions per unit building area increased with institution size. For master's and bac-calaureate institutions, GHG emissions increased as a linear function of institution size.

Introduction: This study investigated the user requirements of individuals with visual impairments regarding the information to be included in orientation and mobility (O&M) aids in order for optimally useful audio-tactile maps of campuses to be developed. In addition, this study aimed at investigating the importance (usefulness) that individuals with visual impairments attribute to environmental information of campuses. Methods: The researchers listed 213 pieces of environmental information concerning campuses and address them in survey by conducting a respective questionnaire. Participants were asked to evaluate the information, regarding the importance or usefulness of the information in regard to safety, location of services, and orientation and wayfinding during movement. Through convenience sampling 115 adults (aged from 18 to 64 years) with visual impairments from four countries (Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, and Germany) took part in the research. Results: Pieces of environmental ...

As Universidades detêm a capacidade e responsabilidade, por múltiplas razões, de promoverem o desenvolvimento pelo ambiente nas suas comunidades e regiões. Podem e devem prosseguir a via da sustentabilidade na política e prática de gestão, afectando o presente e o futuro das sociedades, transmitindo valores e saberes e comportando-se de forma social e ambientalmente responsável. Ocorrem largas dezenas de exemplos de instituições universitárias que assumiram essas responsabilidades e desenvolveram iniciativas visando responder às novas solicitações.
Através da investigação, da criação de conhecimento, no estabelecimento de valores ambientais, no desenvolvimento de ferramentas, nas metodologias, sistemas de indicadores ambientais, na melhoria de desempenho ambiental, na inclusão de aspectos ambientais nos curricula universitários, no envolvimento e influência de todas as partes interessadas. Diversos são os exemplos práticos de gestão sustentável dos campus universitários. Nota-se, nesse aspecto, uma certa predominância do continente Norte-Americano nos exemplos encontrados e estudados.
As universidades são, assim, tanto, parte do problema da sustentabilidade, como parte da solução.
Considerando que a minimização dos impactes ambientais através de sistemas de gestão ambiental são parte da solução para a sustentabilidade dos campus universitários, foram objecto deste trabalho a pesquisa de sistemas de gestão ambiental em universidades, o estudo de medidas de gestão ambiental já aplicadas e respectivos resultados, o levantamento de aspectos ambientais em uma parte do Instituto Superior Técnico, avaliação da opinião dos utilizadores do Pavilhão e a correspondente proposta de Sistema de Gestão Ambiental (SGA), com aplicação específica ao Pavilhão de Engenharia Civil do Instituto Superior Técnico. Refira-se que, por ser considerado uma área funcional inserida no campus do I.S.T. este caso-estudo de Sistema de Gestão Ambiental, apresentando-se como uma possibilidade futura de extensão ao restante campus. Este trabalho abrangeu, ainda, a avaliação da aplicabilidade de tal sistema e os aspectos críticos para a sua implementação

Under the remit of an expanded definition of sustainability – one that acknowledges animal agriculture as a key carbon intensive industry, and one that includes interspecies ethics as an integral part of social justice – institutions such as Universities can and should play a role in supporting a wider agenda for sustainable food practices on campus. By drawing out clear connections between sustainability objectives on campus and the shift away from animal based products, the objective of this article is to advocate for a more consistent understanding and implementation of sustainability measures as championed by university campuses at large. We will draw out clear connections between sustainability objectives on campus and the shift away from animal based products. Overall, our arguments are contextualised within broader debates on the relationship between sustainability, social justice and interspecies ethics. We envisage that such discussion will contribute to an enriched, more r...

#PRAYFORMH370: Flight Tragedy with Global Search Record
Dear reader, let’s observe a minute of prayer for the crew and passengers of Malaysia Airline flight MH370 which mysteriously vanished into literally “the unknown” since 8th March, 2015.

After having many sleepless nights and hectic days putting things together for this edition of “Get Involved” magazine to go to press, suddenly a tragedy occurred. It was on the early hours of Saturday morning 8th March, 2014 when some 227 passengers with a 12-member crew of Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Boeing 777-200ER flight MH370, took off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) for Beijing, the Chinese capital. In just about an hour after taking off, the flight literally became invisible to the aviation radar, and mysteriously went missing. Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Mohamad Najib Tun Razak immediately solicited the support of about 26 countries including Australia, Britain, China, India, Indonesia, New Zealand, United Arab Emirates (UAE), United Kingdom (UK) and United States of America (USA). A sea and air convoy from those countries embarked on what has been so far the biggest search and rescue (SAR) operation in the history of aviation in the world. Huge resources which comprised not less than 22 aircraft, 6 helicopters and 19 ships have so far been mobilized by the good-Samaritan-countries to help the Malaysian Government in the search for the missing airliner. It’s now nearly one month since the SAR operations have been going on in the vast seas, oceans and continental Asia without any trace of MH370. Although Australian, Chinese, French and Thai satellites have lately picked pictures of images in the remotest parts of southern Indian Ocean thought to be debris of the missing aircraft, followed, lately by search for the flight data recorder popularly known as the black box, search is still going on inconclusively.
Since the day the news of the tragic incidence was broken by the media, this tag: #PrayforMH370 or just #MH370 became one of the most trending hash tags on Twitter in Malaysia. Prayer sessions have been held by the Government and people of Malaysia for the recovery of the missing jet with 239 souls on board. Among about six nationals on the plane, about 152 of the passengers were Chinese with about a dozen of Malaysians, a few Americans and Indians, etc.

The editorial board therefore wishes to, on behalf of the entire UPMISA officials and indeed the entire international students’ community of UPM, extends its sincere and heart-felt sympathy to the families and loved ones of the passengers and crew on board MAS flight MH370. We hope that, as painful as the situation is, they would be able to endure the tragedy with great fortitude and sense of responsibility while, at the same time, rendering their support to the Malaysian Government in its unrelenting efforts of searching for the whereabouts of the missing aircraft carrying their loved ones on board. We also wish to sympathize with the Malaysian Government and, by and large, the management of UPM over this sad incident. Please accept the highest assurances of our humble selves in sharing with you the pains and grief of this mysterious tragedy while we keep the flames of the candles of hope burning.

Campus greening is often the first step universities take towards sustainability. However, the diffusion of sustainability reporting methodologies and rankings is still at an early stage, and is biased in mainly measuring energy efficiency indicators while omitting basic features enabling meaningful comparisons among centers or addressing social (users) aspects related to long term sustainability transitions. This paper aims to introduce a critical perspective on sustainability university frameworks through: (i) a review of current Campus Sustainability Assessments (CSAs); (ii) performing and comparing the results obtained from the application of two internationally recognized CSAs (namely, Green Metric and ISCN) to two case studies (the Politecnico di Torino, in Italy, and the Hokkaido University, In Japan) and, finally, (iii) proposing a new CSA approach that encompasses clusters of homogeneous campus typologies for meaningful comparisons and university rankings. The proposed clusters regard universities’ morphological structures (campuses nested within city centers versus outside of a city compact ones), climatic zones and functions. At the micro scale, the paper introduces the need for indicators beyond measuring pure energy efficiency, but which are attentive to local and societal constraints and provide long-term tracking of outcomes. This, better than a sheer record of sustainability priority actions, can help in building homogenous university case studies to find similar and scalable success strategies and practices, and also in self-monitoring progress toward achieving truly sustainable university campuses