PENANG, 12 September 2013 - Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) will harness the students’ ideas for the Healthy Campus success in parallel efforts to ensure that education for sustainable development can be strengthened in line with the emphasis on the success of the Accelerated Programme for Excellence (APEX).

Vice-Chancellor Professor Dato' Dr. Omar Osman explained that USM would appreciate ideas from students in achieving this goal and are ready to take the measures necessary for the success of such efforts.

“This is important as part of the process for them to continue their education when they leave the university campus and be with the community,” said Omar.

He explained this at a press conference held recently.

He added that USM also intends to involve students in sustainability activities and provide whatever support is necessary to continue and will continue to ensure that the concept of sustainability into practice.

“The main thing is that we want to form as many teams of volunteers who are able to realise this goal as possible,” said Omar.

The Vice-Chancellor also launched the Paper Usage Reduction Campaign as a continuation of sustainability campaigns such as ‘Say No to Plastic Bags’ and also the ‘White Coffin’ which started in the USM campus.

He said sustainable practices that can be adopted are ways to maximise the use of e-mail and electronic media in their daily operations. Thus, it will reduce the use of paper and are able to respond faster and easier as well to save the trees from being felled.

“This paper reduction campaign is to invite the entire campus community to save paper and ink usage. This practice not only reduces waste but also save the cost of office management,” said the Healthy Campus Secretariat Coordinator, Mohammad Shafiq Abdul Aziz.

According to Mohammad Shafiq, the response among the new students was very encouraging and beyond expectation in a variety of organised activities that included meetings and registration volunteers around the lecture hall.

All of the campus community is expected to support this campaign held to reduce the use of paper and the community was asked to think before printing.

USM campus was asked to participate in this effort of always practicing a sustainable lifestyle, particularly in the working environment through practices based on the concept of Reuse, Reduce consumption and Recycle or 3R (Reuse, Reduce, Recycle), including using paper on both sides and print pages as needed in the course of work. - Translation: Yong Check Yoon