Towards a Sustainable University

Sustainability at Charles Sturt is the University’s business area dedicated to driving Charles Sturt's commitment to creating a sustainable future for all.

Sustainability is a core institutional policy objective as highlighted within the University's Sustainability Statement. It has relevance to each of the Focus Areas under our current University Strategy.

The following core targets are defined under Charles Sturt’s Asset Optimisation Plan:

• Deliver Charles Sturt’s Clean Energy Strategy to eliminate non-agricultural Scope 1 & 2 emissions by 2030
• Improve energy efficiency to 0.60 GJ/UFA* (from 0.67 baseline)
• Improve water efficiency to 1.29 kL/UFA* (from 1.74 kL/UFA* baseline)
• Reduce waste production to 19.9 kg/EFTSL* (from 26.9 kg/EFTSL* baseline)

^{*Note: UFA = Useable Floor Area; EFTSL = Equivalent full-time student load}

Sustainability at Charles Sturt manages the communication and coordination of the sustainability efforts across the Charles Sturt campuses, including promoting and initiating engaging and exciting sustainability activities. These activities include:

• Charles Sturt is a signatory to the University Commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals 
• Maintaining Charles Sturt’s status as Australia’s first certified carbon neutral university under the Climate Active Program
• 2019 Launch of the University's Sustainability Statement clarifies the universities commitment to sustainability across its staff, student and community operations.
• In 2007 Charles Sturt became a signatory to the Talloires Declaration.
• Since 2013, Charles Sturt has adopted the Learning in Future Environments (LiFE) index as the framework for benchmarking, evaluating, and identifying areas for improvement to shape Charles Sturt's sustainability action plan.
• The university is an active member of Australian Campuses Towards Sustainability (ACTS).
• The Sustainable Practices Graduate Learning Outcome (GLO) has been developed to embed sustainable practices as a standard across graduating students from any discipline so that graduates can "Demonstrate attitudes and implement actions that meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs and those of the environment"
• Charles Sturt University's Research Strategy identifies three priority research areas of Agriculture, Water and Environment; Regional and Rural Health; and Cyber Security and Data Science

These programs inform Charles Sturt’s sustainability practice and provide the framework to measure the outputs of the University’s sustainability activities.

Strive to achieve outcomes and celebrate success

The university is committed to achieving the sustainability outcomes set out in the University Strategy and LiFE framework.  Achievements and successes are celebrated across Charles Sturt and we can all be proud of the outcomes achieved over the past ten years!  The achievements page highlights these and recognises the university's commitment to the ongoing improvement of sustainable practices across every area of university life.