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History of SAGE: the Sustainability Advisory Group for our Environment
Sustainability Advisory Group for our Environment
An opening statement from the Vice Chancellor
It is a pleasure to launch this new website for Lincoln University’s Sustainability Advisory Group for our Environment (SAGE). As New Zealand’s specialist, land-based University, Lincoln University has been committed to environmental issues through its teaching and research for many decades. More recently, it became the first New Zealand University to initiate and affirm an environmental policy in 1993.
Since those beginnings, sustainability has become an increasingly significant topic not only in educational and research circles, but also in corporate and management circles. SAGE represents Lincoln University’s environmental conscience and consciousness – ensuring that environmental issues across the campus are raised and addressed in a systematic and whole-of-organisation process.
I wish to encourage you as staff, students and members of the Lincoln University community to contribute your ideas, feedback and energy to the members of SAGE in their efforts to continuously improve our environmental impacts and footprint.
Roger J. Field
Vice-Chancellor
About SAGE
Lincoln University has long taken environmental sustainability very seriously. In 1990 the staff-student group Lincoln Environmental Organisation (LEO) was established. Three years later the University Council adopted an Environmental Charter. This quickly saw the publication of an Environmental Policy in 1993 (a first among New Zealand tertiary establishments). In 1999 the University agreed to establish an Environmental Task Force with the aim of implementing the Environmental Policy. For the University, the Millennium opened with a push for a new environmental policy. This was later revised and published in 2006 and again in 2010. The University now has an Environmental Sustainability Policy and an Environmental Sustainability Advisory Group (popularly called SAGE or the ‘Sustainability Advisory Group for our Environment’). This group has staff and student representation and the Chair of that group reports directly to the Vice Chancellor.
In addition to SAGE, an important role is played by LEO with strong support from LUSA. These groups help to ensure that the University ‘treads lightly on the Earth’. This has been achieved by major and significant efforts in energy conservation, water management and resource recovery. Lincoln University (together with Canterbury University and CPIT) has acknowledged that environmental sustainability must occur within the University operations but also in research, education and extension activities. For example, from the very beginning Lincoln University has been a major supporter of the Lincoln Envirotown project. The University provides an office and also resources for the Chair of the Lincoln Envirotown Trust.
A milestone was recently achieved with the completion of the building to house the School of Landscape Architecture. There are several good design features including locally sourced materials with a life span of over 100 years and which require minimal maintenance. It has won several local and national architectural awards.
Lincoln University’s achievements in education for sustainability have been summarised in research publications. Two of these publications in peer reviewed journals have received ‘Outstanding paper Awards’ from the Emerald Literati Network: “Need a university adopt a formal environmental management system? Progress without an EMS at a small university” and "Education for sustainability: Developing a postgraduate-level subject with an international perspective".
Everyone on Campus can and should help with environmental sustainability, where even simple actions such as switching off unnecessary lights and only printing those essential documents can make a real difference. Please help by taking action yourself or by making suggestions to either SAGE or LEO. We welcome your comments and ideas.
Members
Greg Ryan Group Chair
Ian Spellerberg Deputy Chair, Academic Staff Representative
Roddy Hale Academic Staff Representative
Ivy Harper Student Representative
Marcus Holland General Staff Representative
Suzanne Huddlestone General Staff Representative
Andrew Lingard General Staff Representative
Bruce Stewart General Staff Representative
Contact us
If you have any concerns, comments or ideas regarding any environmental matters around campus, or the wider community, we look forward to hearing from you.
Email: sage@lincoln.ac.nz.
11 May 2011
Carpooling
Carpooling is a great way to have a better trip to campus. You will meet people, save money and reduce your carbon footprint.
Carpooling has been a long-standing activity at Lincoln University, with our first initiative "RideShare" starting back in 1998. RideShare was a joint venture between the University and Landcare Research, who both produced a web forum for staff and students to share transport and costs when travelling to and from Lincoln. This has gone through an evolution over the years and is shortly to be retired and replaced. In its stead, SAGE are advocating the use of Jayride as Lincoln University's online carpool system.
Jayride
The new Jayride system is free and you can use it to find a carpool or share your own, with anyone inside or outside the University who is travelling the same route.
If you're sharing a ride in your car, then you can also share driving duties or simply list how much you need towards your expenses like petrol and parking.
Why not try it now?
List your carpool to Lincoln University
Browse other carpools to Lincoln University
10 reasons to carpool
Carpooling to work has a lot of benefits. It helps your environment, your economy, your community, and even better it helps you personally to enjoy your commute, travel faster, easier, and save thousands of dollars every year. Want to know more? Here are 10 great reasons to give carpooling a go!
- Save money on petrol
No one likes to pay for petrol. If you share your petrol bill with just one passenger, then you'll save 50%. That’s a 50% saving on your petrol bill, every time you fill up. If you can save $5 on petrol driving to work then carpooling will save you $2,400 every year. - Save money on parking, maintenance, insurance
You car costs you more than just petrol. You also pay for parking, insurance, repairs, maintenance and even worse your car will eventually depreciate until it's worthless. If you carpool you can reduce all of these costs too. - Get to work faster
Do you live near a transit lane? Have you ever watched other cars fly past while you are stuck in traffic? Don't watch them – join them. If you carpool you can drive in transit lanes, wake up later and get home earlier. - De-stress
Driving can be stressful. It requires your concentration for hours at a time, but if you carpool then you don't have to drive as often. A University of California study shows you are likely to have lower blood pressure if you carpool: That's a fact! - Do more with your time
Driving every day is a waste of your time. Wouldn't you rather be enjoying a conversation, or reading a book? If you carpool you will have more time for those things that you'd rather be doing: You can do them from the passenger seat. - Get to know your workmates
Setting up a carpool can help you meet your workmates. You get to meet and talk with other great people from your organisation, every day. You can turn down that radio and bring a little fun and conversation to your morning drive. - Make our community more livable
More cars mean more congestion, and fewer car parks for everyone. It means more traffic noise and pollution around our area. If you carpool then you're helping to improve our community for everyone, including yourself. - Support our local economy
A large portion of the money you spend on petrol goes off shore to pay for crude oil. Why not support local businesses instead? If you save money by carpooling, that's more money to spend locally to support the people and area you care about. - Support our environment
For most people driving is the single biggest contributor to their carbon footprint. This means that cutting down on driving is the biggest action you can take to make your life more sustainable. If your carpool has one passenger, in an average car, on an average commute, you'll avoid 3.2 tonnes of CO2 emissions every year! Carpooling can make a real difference. - It's so easy to get started
Now it's easy to get started carpooling. The "Jayride" carpool system will let you advertise and find a carpool to work with other people who live near you. You can share driving on alternate days, or ask for a contribution towards your expenses, it's easy.
If you have any comments regarding transport to campus, carpooling or Jayride, SAGE would like to hear from you. Please contact the group by emailing sage@lincoln.ac.nz.
Paper Use
So, how much of an impact does staff & student printing on campus have on our environment?
To help answer this question, Canon (our print provider) recently provided a report based on all printing activity for the first quarter of 2012. This provides us with a useful tool to gauge our current rate of consumption and benchmark future consumption.
In it are many interesting statistics for the period, such as the total number of pages sent to the printers, how many sheets of paper were actually printed on and how many trees per year this turnover is likely to consume.
The total number of pages sent for printing by staff & students during this period was 1,531,201 pages. But this does not translate directly to the actual number of sheets of paper consumed. Due to a number of print system features that the University has implemented, the actual number of sheets consumed during this period is instead 949,358 sheets, a saving of over 1,163.69 reams. At that rate of consumption, those saving translate to approximately 280 trees per year.
So how are these savings achieved?
- Our use of duplexing (double-sided printing) has a huge impact on the number of sheets consumed. Out of the total 1,531,201 pages, approximately 74% were printed duplex.
- Uniflow print system features such as FollowMe printing, manual print job deletion and print job expiry produced a further saving of 214,942 sheets.
The table below shows how print features we use translate to environmental impacts and savings for the audit period:
| Environmental Impact 01/01/12-31/03/12 | No duplexing (0%) | Duplexing and Uniflow Features | Total Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total sheets used | 1,531,201 | 949,358 | 581,843 |
| Total reams of paper used | 3,062.40 | 1,898.72 | 1,163.69 |
| Total reams of paper used / year | 12,283.26 | 7,615.73 | 4,667.53 |
| Total weight of paper / year (kg) | 30,708.15 | 19,039.32 | 11,668.83 |
| ^ Equivalent number of trees / year | 737.03 | 456.96 | 280.06 |
| * Greenhouse gases / year (kg) | 52,541.64 | 32,576.28 | 19,965.37 |
| * Waste water / year (litres) | 92,563.58 | 57,390.23 | 35,173.35 |
| * Solid wastes / year (kg) | 18,256.00 | 11,318.88 | 6,937.12 |
^ Source: Conservatree.org
* Source: Environmental Defense Fund Paper Calculator - 100% post consumer recycled Uncoated freesheet
With the recent "No printing day" initiative on 22nd June 2012, SAGE asked staff & students to try a day without access to printing. To show how much difference a day can make, below is the paper usage in the same report from the day before, June 21st 2012.
| Environmental Impact 21/06/12 | No duplexing (0%) | Duplexing (68.66%) and Uniflow Features | Total Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total sheets used | 20,768 | 13,477 | 7,291 |
| Total reams of paper used | 41.54 | 26.95 | 14.58 |
Both tables show how wise management practices and personal use can contribute to our environmental impact. Please look forward to further updates on paper usage and other environmental matters from SAGE in the near future.
If you have any comments or queries, SAGE would like to hear from you. Please contact the group by emailing sage@lincoln.ac.nz.