SUSTAINABILITY CIRCLES
TOWARDS
A SUSTAINABLE CAMPUS
SUSTAINABILITY OFFICE - OCTOBER 2021
https://marcommnews.com/a-new-icon-for-the-2030-agendas-most- important-commitment-to-leave-no-one-behind/
UI GreenMetric World University Rankings
UOS is the National Coordinator of UI GreenMetric World University Rankings in UAE since 2019
UOS is ranked the FIRST in UAE for four consecutive years (2017-2020)
Organized “The 1st National UI GreenMetric Workshop for Universities in the United Arab Emirates” in September 2020
In collaboration with the UI GreenMetric World University Rankings administration in Indonesia and participation of several speakers from local universities
The Workshop aimed to exchange of experience and cooperation in the field of
sustainability and provided an excellent forum to share the best practices, issues and lessons learned from managing the UI GreenMetric World University Rankings’ six indicators, which are setting and infrastructure, energy and climate change, waste, water, transportation and education.
6 keynote speakers from the local universities
Participants from 12 local universities To view the presentations of the speakers, please visit:
https://www.sharjah.ac.ae/en/Administration/Sustainability/Pages/nwu.aspx
TOOLS TO MEASURE UOS SUSTAINABILITY PERFORMANCE
Ranked one of the TOP 200 universities globally
Ranked one of the TOP 100 universities in the Water and Education Categories
Improved
100
position in 2020 compared to 2019The Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS)
The Sustainability Office has established 30 Sustainability Circles. Each of these Sustainability Circles is associated with a specific sustainable field, and has its own goals, Key of Performance Indicators (KPIs), achievement and initiatives.
For more details about the Circles, visit the website
SUSTAINABILITY CIRCLES TOWRDS SUSTAINABILITY EXCELLENCE
The Sustainability Office hosted a
“Sustainability Circles Brainstorming Workshop”
Under the theme of
“ Challenges to Opportunities”
UOS achieved the Silver rate in June 2021
Member in AASHE since 2018
Engages UOS community in tackling the sustainability challenges
Encourages critical thinking
Allows alternative perspectives
Ensure healthy indoor environment and livable campus Manage the landscape, green area and open spaces for healthy outdoor environment
By preserving and maintaining the green area, integrating social activities and working on making the cold corridors as destination (shops and cafeterias to meet users’ needs) address SDGs 13, 5 and 17
Landscape and Building Management SC
Recent Projects:
Landscape design for the Community Recycling Center in collaboration with the Waste Management Circle
Implement sustainable building principles in all new and existing buildings to achieve measurable life cycle cost savings
By addressing the Responsible consumption principles, following SDG can be achieved, as the environment will be preserved, sustainable cities, healthy environment
Building Operation and Maintenance SC
People with Disabilities
SC
Ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning Provide knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development
Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
Also, courses can address and cover the SDGs (teaching students)
Build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
connect individuals, laboratories, research centers, and other campus community members with a shared interest in sustainability and encourage students and faculty members to research sustainability
helping develop effective, accountable and transparent institutions through the existence of policies and repository programs to ensure open access to peer-reviewed research.
Also, researchers may directly address the SDGs
Shift to renewable energy (mainly solar)
Reduce greenhouse emissions
Reduce the energy consumption
By reducing and controlling CO2 emissions, following SDGs can be addressed
Recent Projects:
Electric Vehicle Charging Station
Reduce greenhouse emissions produced by traditional cars by encouraging more sustainable modes of transportation such as carpooling, EV
By using fuel-efficient vehicles, it may help in achieving the efficient use of natural resources
Also, by offering safe and public transportation, this helps in making the cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
Improving transportation support, infrastructure and more sustainable commuting behaviors, such as define routes cycling for the e-scooter
By reducing and controlling CO2 emissions, it will help in decreasing local air pollution and related health impacts, in addition to encouraging walking and cycling can promote the overall health and wellbeing of the campus community
minimize and safely dispose of all hazardous waste, which typically contains toxic components such as lead and mercury that have detrimental human health impacts if handled improperly
by reducing pollution, eliminating dumping and minimizing release of hazardous chemicals and materials, water quality will be improved
By implementing the 3Rs concept, efficient use of natural resources can be achieved
Safety policy for hazardous material usage, in addition to ensure that workers’ basic safety is protected and environmental standards are met during the process of hazardous waste disposal
Recent Projects:
Recycling Sorting Center at the Sustainable Garden Awareness Seminar – What Goes Where? (Bee’ah) In order to increase the efficiency of material
separation Sorting Bins Throughout the Campus
By implementing the water conservation programs, efficient use of natural resources can be achieved
Water recycling program (grey and rainwater), can contribute to decrease the pressure on public infrastructure and make the cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
By Ensuring safe water quality and sustainable
withdrawals and supply of freshwater to address water scarcity and substantially reduce the number of people suffering from water scarcity
Eventuyally will decrease the pressure on the public infrastructure for a more sustainable cities
Also, this Circle is working to ban the single use plastic bottles, which will help in reducing the desposal plastic, pollution, GHG By assesing the water quality on-campus, this can improve the health
Waste Management and
reducing the excessive use of resources
By increasing the green areas, reduce waste sent to landfill, GHG emissions can be reduced
The Circle engages the UoS community in this project, which help in stress relief
relying on local plants suitable for the UAE environment
protect and manage natural resources to prevent desertification, environmental degradation, and degradation of biodiversity.
Waste Management- Recycling food waste & paper by composting it, will reduce the disposal waste
Minimizing food waste and waste sent to landfill, will help in decreasing the GHG
Composting will improve the soil quality
Pest Management – reduce of hazardous and chemical from pesticides.
Beside promoting organic food will help in improving the health
Towards achieving food security
help foster regional food security and support sustainable agriculture
Also, selling the harvested organic crops to the local community would contribute to the sustainable economic growth substantially this will help in
developing a sustainable city
Recent Projects:
1- +2 tons of high-yield soil produced by collecting dry leaves, used cartons, and food scarps from both the College of Medicine and UOS community – 1025 AED savings
2- Adding HDPE Liner to save water – 30% of water
3- Conducted the “First Community Garden Virtual Workshop”, to the stakeholders of the community farm
4- obtained the organic certification from Emirates Authority for Standardization and Metrology “ESMA” to sell the produced organic crops to the market
5- Educating the community of UAE about organic
farming through social media that successfully led to them practicing it in their homes
6- Harvested 40 different types of tomatoes, radish,
cabbage, spinach, okra, mint and sold them to the
supermarkets and community within UOS
Help in protecting the ecosystem by controlling the number of cats on- campus and implementing a program of feeding the cats Decrease the diseases among cats, substantially this will help in improving the health of human
Eventually, this will help in developing a safe and sustainable city
Recent Projects:
1- In-house feeding station (from recycled wood) In cooperation with FMPD
2- Food Donation Campaign
3- TNR Drive
TNR program has been carrying out for stray cats in various housing areas and other campus buildings since November 2019, in collaboration with Sharjah Cats and Dogs Shelter (SCADS).
More than 100 cats have been
neutered and returned back
