Tertiary sustainability forum in Auckland

Tertiary sustainability forum in Auckland

New Zealand’s first sustainability practitioners’ forum for tertiary education will be hosted by the University of Auckland next week, on 4-5 September.

The forum aims to build a community of sustainable practice in New Zealand’s tertiary education sector. It’s aimed at sustainability practitioners, managers, co-ordinators and officers, plus a small group of invitees from each of the participating institutions who have management roles in facilities, energy, waste, procurement or events.

“The forum is intended to provide an inspirational, supportive and informative opportunity to further enhance our community of sustainable practice,” says organiser, Dr Lesley Stone, manager of Sustainability and Environment at the University of Auckland. “We’ll do this by sharing and learning from our collective experiences in facilitating progress towards sustainability in our institutions.”

She hopes the outcomes will include an enhanced sense of what’s possible in a practical, applicable sense and concrete ideas on what practitioners can do in their own settings.

The forum’s visiting keynote speaker, Leanne Denby, is Director of Sustainability at Macquarie University in Sydney and President of the Australasian Campuses’ Towards Sustainability. The forum is being run in association with the International Society of Sustainability Professionals.

Psychologist, Niki Harré from the University of Auckland will be running an interactive ‘Infinite Game’ which is the antithesis of the normal finite games we play, where there are rules, specialist players, and the aim is to win and end the game, says Dr Stone.

“The Infinite Game can be played by anyone, and the only ‘rule’ is to keep the game in play”, she says. “Niki has been running and researching this game for a couple of years now, and views it as a strong metaphor for sustainability that really challenges people to think quite deeply about what they value and how they can keep what they learn in play as they continue with their professional and personal lives.”

The Forum will include participants from AUT University, Christchurch Polytechnic Institute, Massey University, Otago Polytechnic, UNITEC Institute of Technology, University of Auckland, University of Canterbury, University of Otago, University of Waikato Victoria University of Wellington and Waikato Institute of Technology.

ENDS

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