Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) will continue to work towards realising its efforts in becoming a leading world-class university in sustainability.

This was stated by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Industry and Community Network), Professor Dato’ Dr. Susie See Ching Mey who represented the Vice-Chancellor in presenting a paper “USM - A Sustainability-led University” at the International Sustainability Conference 2013 Post Rio+20 on WEHAB+3: A Southeast Asian Perspectives held in Penang recently.

“USM is in the process of transitioning into a university that adopts sustainability as a key element in all its functions by integrating three key pillars of sustainable development of society, economy, and environment in the three higher education missions of teaching, research, and community engagement,” said See Ching Mey.

He added that from the perspective of sustainable development emerges issues such as climate change which are global in nature but may have a direct impact at the local level which requires solutions according to local needs that require an effort to think globally but act locally. This is often expressed as think global and act local with various situations pertaining to the community, economy and the environment being interrelated to one another.

“The journey of USM as an institution of higher learning showed development that are closely associated with the same phase, for example the establishment of the concept of Healthy Campus, USM as a Regional Centre of Expertise for Education for Sustainable Development, the implementation of the concept of metaphor of USM being a ‘University in a Garden’ and its achievement as an APEX University based on sustainable education,” she explained.

Presently renewed efforts are being made in integrating sustainability with USM major efforts involving the entire system and process that involves a different education approach from the previous approach as shown in USM's roadmap for sustainability.

The main challenge for the integration of the three pillars of sustainability, namely society, economy and environment with the process of teaching, research and community engagement revolves around issues related to water, energy, health, agriculture and biodiversity and other issues such as climate change, population, the production of consumer needs and poverty, which should be addressed and overcome as soon as possible.

Moreover, the Centre for Global Sustainability Studies USM’s role is to nurture effort that serves as a link or nexus between the scientific world and community policies and produce knowledgeable human resources towards realising this vision at the higher degree level.

“USM is working to develop key sustainability indicators to monitor changes and progress made by devising an application “Sustainability Assessment Methodology” or SAM to help in the auditing process which showed that 45% of the courses taught in the university have at least one of the three sustainability pillars, 26% have at least 2 pillars, and 9% had all three pillars,” See Ching Mey added.

From among the 2,671 SAM audit courses taught, 1,173 have a sustainability pillar with 14% of it related to the economy, 5% related to environment and 25 % related to the community.

While the analysis of 2,651 research projects showed that about 1,508 or 57% have at least one pillar of sustainability, while another 54% have at least two pillars. About 30% of the research projects are focused on the community​​.

Meanwhile, the audit made using SAM application on 416 community engagement-based projects showed that the largest number of projects or 43% was closely related to the economy and society. As high as 30% were related to the community and 14% involved all the three pillars, including the environment.

“We hope that USM will be able to sustain the best practices that were done and at the same time strengthen the effort to apply the principles of sustainability into the main resolution of the United Nations Organisation and the Rio Process and result of the Agenda 21,” See Ching Mey added.

Currently USM is pursuing the agenda initiated by Healthy Campus which is based on students’ involvement, voluntary projects such as the elimination of polystyrene and reduced use of plastics, offering a number of programmes at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, launch the Asia Pacific University Community Network (APUCEN) in 2011 with its secretariat at USM, launched South East Asia Sustainability Network (SEASN) on 28 October 2013 with its secretariat at USM and the launching of University Sustainability Council in 2013.

“Although there are many challenges to overcome, however the efforts to realise the intention for USM to become a university that leads the sustainability effort will be strengthened by working together as an entity, not to mention the global context which would also require the support and cooperation in line with the Rio Declaration and Development 1992 - Peace, development and environmental protection are interdependent and indivisible,” said See Ching Mey at the end of her presentation.

More than 150 participants who attended and followed the presentation supported and congratulated the efforts made by USM. - Translation: Yong Check Yoon/Photo: Mohd Fairus Md. Isa