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THANK YOU, FROM THE ACTS TEAM
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It's with big sigh of relief that we publish this final edition of enACT for 2021! It's certainly been another challenging year, but with challenges there have also come opportunities, and we have made the most of any and all that came our way. We'll be celebrating all of these achievements in our annual Year In Review so please check it out when it lands in your inbox shortly.
We'd like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to all of our members and partners that have supported ACTS this year, and continue to help us drive our mission to engage, empower and exemplify campuses to lead the transformation towards a sustainable future. Your continued membership and participation in our active community has ensured that ACTS continues to be the leading Australasian network for sustainability leadership, innovation and practice on campuses.
The ACTS team is looking forward to continuing this important work next year. We'll be kicking off early with the 2nd Regional Workshop on Mainstreaming Education for the SDGs in Higher Education with our partners SDSN AusNZPac and PRME AusNZ. Please check out the EOI below for more information on how to get involved in this upcoming online workshop.
Our popular online Member Roundtables will start again in late February. You can let us know now what topics you'd like us to host by completing this very short survey, with registrations for the first events opening in early January.
We're busy preparing for our biggest year of Green Impact to date, with ACTS supporting 14 organisations to implement the award-winning sustainability behaviour change and engagement program. We're excited to welcome a number of new universities to the Green Impact family, as well our very first off-campus organisation - Early Childhood Australia. We'll also be launching a number of Green Impact Lite toolkits in March/April for universities, K-12 schools and small businesses, so please check out our website if you'd like to learn more or get involved in this popular program.
The Green Gown Awards Australasia will of course be back next year! All your favourite categories designed to showcase sustainability excellence will return, along with some exciting new ones. It's not too soon to start thinking about your next submission, with applications opening in late April.
And finally, we are extremely excited to be welcoming back the much missed annual ACTS Conference in May. Continuing the theme of The Future of Sustainability, the call for content for this virtual event will be launched in January, so make sure you're keeping an eye out first thing after the holidays.
With all of that on the go, the ACTS Staff team will be taking a well deserved break over the holiday period. We'll be officially signing off on Friday the 17th December, and will be back refreshed and ready for the big year ahead on the 5th January 2022. So until then, on behalf of the ACTS Board and Staff, we wish you a very merry, safe and sustainable festive season and look forward to working with you in the New Year!
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SUZANNE DAVIS JOINS THE ACTS BOARD
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We're delighted to announce that Suzanne Davis has been approved as a new Director by the ACTS Board, until our 2022 Annual General Meeting.
Suzanne is the Environment & Sustainability Program Officer at The University of Queensland, where her significant contributions to driving meaningful organisational change were recognised at the 2021 Green Gown Awards Australasia. Suzanne has been an active member of the ACTS community for several years, particularly through the ACTS STARS Cohort.
Speaking on the role, Suzanne said "I’m very excited to be joining the ACTS Board! It’s a great group of professionals and I’m keen to be involved to help shape the future growth and development of our sector. It’s an exciting time to be involved in sustainability. ACTS members have so much collective depth and range of experience and I’m keen to help members benefit from that."
Suzanne fills a Board vacancy left after Phillipa Schliebs from the University of Adelaide stepped down shortly following the 2021 AGM. We would like to take this opportunity for thank Phil for her contributions to ACTS during her time on the Board - she will be very much missed (even though she assures us that she'll be joining as many ACTS events as possible next year!).
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PICK YOUR MEMBER ROUNDTABLE TOPICS!
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Member Roundtables are an opportunity for you to connect in an informal virtual setting to share ideas, challenges and practical solutions with colleagues from across the Australasian network.
Each meeting focuses on a specific area of sustainability, and is limited to a small number of active participants, allowing everyone the opportunity to share experiences, ask questions and contribute to discussion. Members can also register as listen-only participants, while still having the ability able to submit questions for discussion.
There is no expectation for active participants to be doing everything perfectly (in reference to the roundtable topic), rather this is an opportunity to connect with fellow members within the ACTS community who are addressing similar challenges, and taking advantage of similar opportunities.
Current members are now invited to complete a very short survey using the link below, to let us know what topics you'd like us to focus on next year - as either an active or listen-only participant. The survey will take just a few moments to complete and will help us schedule topics of interest to kick off the 2022 roundtable calendar.
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Don't forget! You can access recordings from past roundtables via our online member portal. Recent roundtables have focussed on transport and travel, carbon and climate, circular economy and sustainable procurement.
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EOI EXTENDED UNTIL JAN 14, 2022
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SDSN AusNZPac, ACTS and PRME AusNZ are excited to be hosting the 2nd Regional Workshop on Mainstreaming Education for the SDGs in Higher Education.
One of the biggest contributions HEIs can have towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is to provide all their students with the knowledge, skills and mindsets to address complex sustainable development challenges.
This workshop aims to share good practices from institutions in our region and discuss the challenges and opportunities for scaling up education for the SDGs across HEIs in our region.
- Dates: 22, 23 & 24 February 2022
- Time each day: 3:00–5:00 pm NZDT | 1:00–3:00 pm AEDT | 10:00 am – 12:00 pm AWST | other time zones
- Location: Virtual
- Full details: See here
We are inviting expressions of interest from SDSN AusNZPac, ACTS and PRME AusNZ member institutions to present during the workshop on interesting initiatives they are doing related to any of the three workshop focus areas:
- (1) Institutional support for mainstreaming education for the SDGs
- (2) Implementing interdisciplinary and multi-stakeholder programs
- (3) Integrating climate change into learning & teaching
Please email EOIs to Tahl Kestin (tahl.kestin@monash.edu) with details of the work and which focus area(s) it relates to by 14 January 2022.
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ACTS members are invited to share news and events in upcoming editions of enACT. To be featured please email a brief description, landscape image and link to info@acts.asn.au.
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