MMUs new data centre was built by APT and meets 16% of the universities overall target for carbon reduction as well as reducing annual energy costs by over 30%. John Thompson of APT addressed delegates at the Gala Dinner and presented the awards and commented; ‘we see the importance of supporting this event as it shapes the way universities educate future generations to care for the planet in so many different ways. We at APT are helping to reduce carbon emissions and energy costs by designing and building more efficient data centres and comms room environments. At MMU we used products from APC Schneider who are a multi-national company dedicated to global sustainability’
The 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), also known as “Rio+20”, was a historical event. Held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in June 2012, this landmark gathering agreed on various sets of actions to make the world a better and more sustainable place to live in. In particular, the document “The Future We Want”, outlined many of the measures countries across the world should pursue and implement, in order to translate the principles of sustainable development into practice.
As a parallel event to UNCSD, the 1st World Symposium on Sustainable Development at Universities” (WSSD-U-2012) was held on 5-6 June 2012. Attended by 120 delegates from 26 countries, WSSD-U-2012 produced, among other things, the book„ Sustainable Development at Universities: New Horizons“, as Volume 34 of the series, Environmental Education, Communication and Sustainability“. This ground-breaking publication on the theory and practice of sustainable development, is one of the most comprehensive publications on sustainability at universities ever produced, focusing on both industrialised and developing nations. But if anything, WSSD-U-2012 demonstrated the need for a continuation of the dialogue among sustainability academics and practitioners, so as to address the issues, matters and problems at hand.
It is against this background that the “2nd World Symposium on Sustainable Development at Universities” (WSSD-U-2014) was organised by Manchester Metropolitan University (UK) and the Research and Transfer Centre “Applications of Life Sciences” of the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (Germany), in cooperation with the United National University initiative “Regional Centres of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development” (RCE). The Workshop was one of the last events to be held as part of the UN Decade on Education for Sustainable Development (UNDESD), which concludes in 2014.
The “2nd World Symposium on Sustainable Development at Universities” (WSSD-U-2014) was a great success and focussed on “transformative approaches to sustainable development across disciplines”, and this will no doubt contribute to the further development of this fast-growing field.