UI GreenMetric Joined The International Sustainable Campus Network (ISCN) 2017

On June 26-28, 2017, UI GreenMetric joined The International Sustainable Campus Network (ISCN) 2017 in Poster session represented by drg. Baiduri Widanarko, MKKK, Ph.D. The title of poster was Global Trends in Sustainable Universities: 2016 UI GreenMetric World University Rankings Report. It highlighted 2016 rankings suggesting that in order to make better impact to the global sustainability environment, universities need to put more efforts on six criteria (setting and infrastructure, energy and climate change, waste, water, transportation, and education), particularly on ‘energy and climate change’ since higher education has a crucial role to play in addressing these challenges. Based on the discussions in the conference participants, they welcomed the rating of environment sustainability campus. In general, they asked about the fairness and validity of the methods used by the UI GreenMetric in Rankings. It is explained that UI GreenMetric will validate through the evidence to be uploaded by UI GreenMetric participants in order to reduce the bias due to self-assessment. The University of British Columbia (UBC) and City of Vancouver co-hosted the ISCN 2017 Conference. It welcomed registrants from 31 countries and 78 higher education institutions. The theme of this conference was Climate.City.Campus. ISCN 2017 served as a platform for exploration, discussion, learning, and networking (https://www.international-sustainable-campus-network.org/). The interesting thing about this conference was that almost every piece of food (plates, knives, spoons, and forks) was made of recyclable material. In addition, each participant also distributed reusable drinking water bottles in order to reduce plastic cups. Participants were also invited to directly sort waste. The committee looked to strive to be consistent with the topic of the conference, by conducting environment sustainability. The winners of the 2016 ISCN Sustainable Campus Excellence Awards are: National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore (Building and Innovative Infrastructure Award); University of Applied Sciences Trier, Germany (Campus Planning and Management Systems Award); Swarthmore College, United States (Innovative Collaboration Award); Chiba University, Japan (Student Leadership Award). Zena Harris, the 2017 ISCN Executive Director, says, “The winners provided excellent examples of innovation in higher education sustainability.  It was an honor to for us to award these great efforts and provide global recognition that show leadership in sustainability.”