A matter of urgency

The trajectory of the world’s climate and ecology is rightly described as a crisis: a crisis of our making. But this crisis can also, from the University’s perspective, be seen as a challenging problem, or set of related problems, requiring solutions to which an institution grounded in a long tradition of inquiry and ingenuity is well-placed to contribute. The University takes seriously its goal of helping to solve the climate and ecological crisis.

Our people measure long-term changes to the environment, predict future changes, and devise and test responses. As an institution, we also commit ourselves to the art of questioning, provoking, clarifying, truth-seeking; an art that underpins the healthy function of democracy and the progress of society. Of course, as a multi-campus institution with its own carbon footprint, we’re also dedicated to reducing our carbon emissions and reversing our negative, or harmful, environmental impacts.

Our response to the crisis is multi-faceted. It involves the generation of new knowledge about the changing state of the natural world, as well as culture and society. And it involves improving our environmental performance as an organisation. It informs our search for new technologies and innovations, and our shaping of a university curriculum in which the study of sustainability has a deep and broad presence.

It’s an exciting and fast-evolving curriculum. Adding to our popular Certificate and Diploma of Sustainable Living, we now have a Sustainability Major available to all students; and from first semester next year we’ll be offering a fully-funded three week learning experience in Asia focussed on interdisciplinary approaches to global sustainability.

These are all dimensions, ultimately, of the same mission: sustainability. I’m often asked about sustainability, the overarching theme of this review, It's in our nature: Sustainability at the University. At heart it’s about how we can equitably live on this planet within natural limits so future generations can share it as we have. Given the harm we have done, it is also about regeneration so we can restore the planet to a state we can fairly pass on to future generations.

As much as it’s about solutions to the climate crisis and the recovery and repair of the planet’s environment, sustainability is also about the transformation to a more just, free and equal world; a world where human dynamism and creativity are given reign within limits set by nature, equity and justice.

We need to act as a matter of urgency. By 2050 the world needs a society and economy that is carbon neutral and circular, and where inequalities are reducing rather than increasing.

Given the importance of creating a circular economy if we are to have a sustainable future, waste management is an integral part of the University’s sustainability strategy, and this strategy informs our approach to sharing, repairing, refurbishing and remanufacturing resources. The more we’re able to minimise our resource use, the more we contribute to the reduction of waste and pollution. Our sensitivity to waste management on our own campuses helps us to see that the ecological crisis is itself a waste management problem. If we reuse all that we create rather than continuing to extract and emit, then we start to decouple economic progress from its impact on nature.

This time last year the University was named world’s best for climate action - one of 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals - in the prestigious Times Higher Education (THE) Impact rankings. This ranking confirmed our position as a world leader in sustainability and prompted us to work towards a publication that might capture and celebrate our sustainability-related research across a range of academic disciplines - the humanities, sciences and social sciences - as well as the operations of our Hobart, Launceston, Cradle Coast and Sydney campuses. It would give us a chance to talk about new curriculum initiatives, new ways of thinking about the economy and sustainability.

We also wanted to build a case for urgent action on climate change and, more broadly, sustainability. There is much work to be done and little time in which to do it. We all need to work together on the challenge.

This review, then, has several aims. It provides a picture of what the University can achieve and how the University can contribute to broader collective achievements. It’s an articulation of our goals.

It is a call to action as we attempt to galvanise ourselves, our friends and allies, and the society we serve, to confront the climate crisis with renewed vigour and purpose. If we are serious about tackling the crisis, we will have to make some bold and fundamental shifts in the way we operate as a society and an economy.

I’m convinced that we will be judged by future generations on the solidity of our commitment to this cause and the decisiveness of our actions.

This review explores some of our best efforts, as an institution, to address the crisis through teaching and research, questioning and inquiry. But much more needs to be done. Our aspiration is to work together with our community to see Tasmania become a model for what a truly sustainable society and economy is like; a place that can inspire others to accelerate their work to create a sustainable way for us all to live on this beautiful planet

Rufus Black is the Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Tasmania.