Australian Hearing Hub Seminar Room 3.610 Level 3

SUSTAINABILITY REPRESENTATIVE NETWORK MEETING

Tuesday 9December2014 10.00am-12.00pm

Australian Hearing Hub Seminar Room 3.610 Level 3

MINUTES

Present: Suzane Azzi, Belinda Bean, Cindy Cunningham, Leanne Denby, Andrew Dunstall, Linda Evans, Selma Huang, Chandima Jayanath, Fiona Lawson, Alana Mailey, Andrew McNeill,Samantha Newton, Sally Northover, Amy Pilkington, Nataliya Psyarenko, Zubeda Raihman, Sidsel Sorensen, Sarah Jo Steinhoff, Clare Wade.

1. Welcome

Cindy welcomed SRN members to the meeting and outlined the agenda of the meeting.

Cindy informed members that Macquarie Sustainability had won the student engagement award at the annual Green Gown Awards Australasia at the beginning of November for the 'Tap-it' campaign. It was a great campaign involving both the efforts of staff and students. Members were thanked for getting behind the campaign and supporting it by their department efforts.

Two new filtered water stations have been installed outside E3B and E4B with a further 2 to be installed along University Drive as part of the upgrade.

1. Staff Sustainability Culture Survey–Leanne Denby, Director Sustainability

Leanne mentioned the Staff Sustainability Culture Survey that had been promoted in the latest edition of ‘This Week’ (staff news). The survey is designed to understand staff attitudes, views and behaviours regarding sustainability on campus. This is the first time such a survey has been conducted.

SRN members were requested to promote the survey amongst colleagues in order to capture as many staff as possible for a high response rate. SRN members were informed that they would receive a mailchimp about the survey which they could forward on to department staff. The survey is being managed by an external company with a likelihood the survey will be promoted further campus wide in the new year.

1. Target Sustainability: Moving Forward – Cindy Cunningham, Sustainability Engagement Officer

Cindy talked to members about Target Sustainability (TS) which was introduced as a category in this years DSC.

TS is an approach to understanding and measuring holistic sustainability with departments, to help improve sustainability performance and identify any outstanding gaps for action.

Over 20 departments attempted TS as part of the DSC, which was a lot more than anticipated.

A total of16 departments organised an independent assessment of their TS review, which was carried out by a student Sustainability Liaison.

Of these 12 departments have developed an action plan, which identifies specific actions to move forward with.

Moving forward to next year, TS will be a discrete program for departments to engage in.

Based on feedback from meetings with staff who managed TS in their department, a new certification process is being rolled out in 2015. All the 60 actions will be split into bronze, silver and gold categories, based on their difficulty.

There will be a requirement that 85% of actions at each level are completed, some of which will be mandatory.

Twice a year departments will have the opportunity to submit their TS actions for review.

Belinda and Cindy are still working out the finer details and will be giving departments more information in the New Year.

Departments who were the ‘early adopters’ of TS received framed awards. When the certification process rolls out departments will be able to change their certificates as they move up the certification levels. The departments to receive the early adopter awards are as follows:

•Faulty of Human Sciences Administration Office

•Institute of Early Childhood

•Department of Ancient History

•Department of Economics

•Department of Cognitive Science

•Department of Biological Sciences

•Informatics

•Property

•Revenue Services

•Campus Engagement Accommodation

•Faculty of Arts Administration Office

•Human Resources

•Department of Education

•Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism

•Department of Accounting & Corporate Governance

•Department of Marketing and Management

•Human Resources

•Department of Media, Music, Communication and Cultural Studies

•Department of Indigenous Studies

•Campus Life Administration

•Campus Life Crunch Events and Catering

•Campus Life Human Resources

•Campus Life Sport

1. SRN Rep Wrap - Linda Evans, Amy Pilkington, Zubeda Raihman, Sidsel Sorensen and Meg Woods.

Sharing and collaborating is an important aspect of the SRN a few SRN members were asked to share some of their 'wins’they have achieved as part of their SRN role and what they have been doing in their departments to foster sustainability.

1. SRN Award of Excellence Presentation - Cindy Cunningham, Sustainability Engagement Officer

Cindy explained the inaugural Sustainability Representative Network (SRN) Award of Excellence, which is designed to recognise and reward the efforts of an outstanding SRN Member who has endeavoured to make a positive difference towards sustainability at Macquarie. SRN members were encouraged to nominate themselves or another individual on the network that deserves recognition for continued and on-going effort to improve sustainability performance. This year a total of 11 nominations were received and blindly judged by a panel consisting of the Director Sustainability (Leanne Denby), Acting Manager Organisation and Development (Loren Hutton) and the Chief Operating Office (Paul Schreier).This year we expanded our category toaward a winning professional and an academic staff member, in addition to the Highly Commended.

The following nominations were received:

•Hiranya Anderson – Linguistics

•Linda Evans – Ancient History

•Peter Keegan – Ancient History

•Emilio Lomonaco – International Studies

•Neville McElroy – Psychology

•Andy McNeill - PICT

•Rebecca Ohanessian – IEC

•Amy Pilkington – Informatics

•Gai Ramesh - Centre

•Sidsel Sorensen – Cognitive Science

•Meg Woods – Gumnut Cottage

The overall winner of the 2014 SRN Award of Excellence (professional) was Sidsel Sorensen(Faculty of Human Sciences) and Peter Keegan (academic) (Faculty of Arts). The Highly Commended Award was given to Meg Woods from Gumnut Cottage. The winners received a plaque and a red balloon voucher.

1. 2014 Grant Wins

2014SRN grant recipients were given an opportunity to share their initiatives, learnings and challenges from implementing their grant funded project. The following SRN members presented on their projects:

• Chandima Jayanath -Edible Green Garden
• Sally Northover - 10,000 Steps Tasmania Walking Challenge
• Amy Pilkington - Fill It, Drink It, Reuse It
• Sidsel Sorensen -Office Landscape as a Healthy and Inspiring Environment
• Clare Wade - Energy Efficiency in the Herring Road Apartments
• Meg Woods-Nurturing our Community Through Sustainability
• Carlene Kirvan - Upcycling and Suspended Dining for BYO events

For further details on the grant projects see the SRN Grant Program on the website”

1. Y1A Permaculture Garden – Belinda Bean, Sustainability Officer

Belinda Bean provided an overview to SRN members on the new permaculture garden outside Y1A, the various elements and the overall design.

1. Lunch at Y1A

SRN members celebrated the 5th birthday of the SRN with a cake and shared a lunch together.

Page 116/02/2019