SRN MINUTES – Q1 Meeting
Tuesday 3 March 2015 10.00am - 1.00pm
Present: Hale Adasal, Suzane Azzi, Belinda Bean, Keryn Boland, Iain Brew, Abraham Chua, Cindy Cunningham, Linda Evans, Bronwyn Forster, Tracey Grimes, Lara Hardy, Tara Hawley, James Hazelton, Selma Huang, Jill Hummelstad, Selma Huang, Chandima Jayanath, Andre Kok, Irma Knuistingh Neven, Galina Lazareva, Sophie Lennan, Emilio Lomonaco, Alana Mailey, Kate Marvell, Kath McLachlan, Christina Miebach, George Milad, Dorian Minors, Samantha Newton, Sally Northover, Rebecca Ohanessian, Angela Powell, Nataliya Psyarenko, Zubeda Raihman, Rebecca Ritchie, Janet Robertson, Sidsel Sorensen, Sarah Jo Steinhoff, Janelle Wallace, Meg Woods, Paul Yeates.
1. Welcome
Cindy welcomed SRN members and noted the many new SRN reps that had joined the network and those who had returned to the network. The network has now grown to include a number of new departments and businesses.
Cindy informed the group that this year marks the 6th year since the SRN was established and that a lot has been achieved a lot during this time. The success of the network is due to the dedication and hard work of the SRN members. Five years on, presents an opportunity to revisit the original intent of the SRN and its direction, in order to continue to strengthen improve the network.
Cindy introduced Janelle Wallace, a consultant to the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage who was invited to facilitate the SRN meeting on the direction of the SRN and moving forward.
To start the workshop, a short video featuring some of our SRN members and their experiences was shown.
2. Workshop – SRN Direction
Janelle Wallace commenced the workshop and explained the purpose of the workshop was to:
‘To help re-invent a strong Sustainability Representative Network within the University that inspires others to achieve long term sustainability outcomes and effectively communicate actions and outcomes across your organisation”.
Please refer to the powerpoint for the workshop and the Participant handout which are separate attachments alongside the minutes.
Activity 1
Janelle asked existing network members to consider why they joined the SRN and what would be their ultimate success from being an SRN member. New SRN members were asked why they joined and what they were excited about. Various SRN members shared their thoughts with the group. See separate power point of workshop slides.
Tara Hawley (GLP) – opportunity to get students involved through leadership and to influence by doing
Dorian (VC’s Office) – to learn and grow, understand how to get involved.
Rebecca (DVCR) – rewarding to pass on knowledge, and to keep learning. Ultimate success is getting fellow staff on board and involved.
Linda (Ancient History) – stepped in as an SRN member when Peter Kegan went on leave. Research area is environmental history. Ultimate success is having an effect on the department and having staff members coming up and identifying issues. Trying to crack the hard nuts is the challenge.
Chandi (Banksia childcare centre) – inspiring children with things learned and introducing sustainability projects into the childcare centre.
Tracey (Human Resources) – personally passionate, can add weight to push things through HR from management position. Excited about having the opportunity to engage staff beyond one sustainability event in the year (DSC).
Janelle asked the group to come up with thoughts about why there is a staff Sustainability Representative Network. Reasons put forward included:
· Not all staff are on the same page, so there is a need to involve as many people as possible
· Great forum to hold conversations, meet people and inspire action
· Help the university
Janelle explained four emerging green team trends provided and provided good examples of green teams including Genentech, Green Genes, Maroba Aged Care and eBay Green.
Activity Two
SRN members were asked to discuss what has worked well with the SRN. SRN members raised the following:
· Incredibly well organised – if something feels erratic you don’t want to have a part of it; you can anticipate
· SRN values the time of its members
· Well planned
· Good leadership
· Encouraging and supportive forum– videos, all ideas are good ideas
· Everyone’s open to discussing ideas
· Small grants program
· Contagious enthusiasm, passion & energy
SRN members were asked what could be done differently with the SRN. SRN members raised the following:
· Information pack to share with department, including call for actions
· Communication templates
· Defined call to action as part of information packs
· Videos – why, what, achievements to motivate
· Key triggers eg cost savings relative to individual
· More involvement from upper executive
· Recognise time of SRN members via job descriptions
Activity Three
Janelle discussed ‘Visions’ for organisations and groups, and presented Macquarie’s sustainability vision and Sustainability Framework. Sustainability Team Value/Mission statements are designed to:
· Promote and inspire sustainability
· Create a cohesive and supportive group – leading to change
· Provide leadership – inspiring, getting people to come along
· Accountability – actually making things happen
· Collective engagement
Participants identified the following words to describe what they thought the SRN stood for:
· Inspiring
· Improvement
· Achievement
· Change
· Relevant
· Simple
· Innovation
· Education
· Accountability
· Ownership
· Dedication/commitment
· Inclusive community
· Advocating
· Leadership
· Research-based
· Reflection
· Facilitation
The original Terms of Reference for the SRN was discussed and reviewed in groups and compared to the sample Green Team Mandate provided in the participant handout. SRN members felt the ‘Mandate’ for the SRN should be short, simple and clear. The mandate should address the following:
· Value statement
· Purpose
· Roles and responsibilities
· Team membership and involvement
· Meetings
· Communication and reporting
· Resources
· Macquarie Sustainability’s Role
Cindy is to draft up the SRN Mandate for the group with input from interested members.
In groups SRN members discussed value statements for the SRN and put forward the following ideas which were voted on twice:
· Promote and inspire sustainability
· Creating a cohesive and supportive group – leading to change - 4
· Inspiring leadership - 1
· Accountability – making things happen - 3
· Collective engagement
· A university community collectively engaged in sustainable initiatives – 16, 14*
· Innovation – in doing & thinking - 1
· Involvement
· Clean green and innovative - 2
· Influencing and inspiring culture change through innovative education - 15, 2*
· Influencing and inspiring culture change through innovative education by creating a cohesive and supportive university community 15*
SRN members were asked to identify the measures of success for the network. The following was put forward:
· Actual and tangible outcomes
· Membership numbers up
· Award winning
· Meeting attendance
· Increase in grant applications
· Top management support
· Other organisations referencing the Macquarie University SRN
· Every department represented and active
· Increase in cross-discipline collaboration
· Showcasing initiatives
· Increase employee & student awareness/engagement of
3. Macquarie Sustainability Initiatives
Sustainability Focus for 2015
Cindy noted the following 2015 sustainability priorities:
• Rolling out new quarterly sustainability themes and on-line resources for ‘M-power’
• Target Sustainability relaunch to staff
• Phase 2 of the permaculture garden and delivering permaculture workshops
• Continuing the bushcare program and Arboretum events and tours
• Continued rollout of the Learning & Teaching in Sustainability Framework to Faculty of Arts, Business and Economics, Science and Engineering and Human Science inUndergraduateand Postgraduateprograms
• Corporate Volunteering Strategy
• Finalising Sustainability Strategy (2014-2019)
• ‘One Planet’ Ecological Footprint training
• Delivering actions in the Energy Strategy
‘Clean and Green’: February/April M-power Theme
Belinda Bean presented the current February-April quarterly theme – ‘Clean and Green’ which focuses on Macquarie’s new waste and litter prevention program on campus. The campaign is inspiring a vision of a campus community that proactively minimises litter and maximises reuse and recycling efforts. As part of the campaign there is a Clean Up Campus Day on Tuesday 24th March from 10-2pm. Teams can registers on the website.
Belinda explained the theme and ran through the resources on the website, including the team ‘cheat sheet’, video and poster. Belinda explained the one bin system and the vaiours staff recycling programs on campus. Belinda also explained the social media element of the campaign, ‘litterati’. Litterati involves taking photos of litter on instagram, tagging it using hastags to help identify problem spots for us to manage.For the campaign, a photo-shoot with the Vice-Chancellor, student volunteers and Elder in Residence is to take place. This will promote endorsement for the campaign and photos taken will be used in marketing material.
The presentation can be viewed as a separate attachment under the Minutes on the Sustainability website.
4. SRN Wrap Up
Cindy informed the group that the SRN grants are open. The Staff Sustainability Culture Culture Survey Extension has been extended to 27 March (https://www.take-survey.com/awake/mqu_sci.htm).
There is a new Harvest Hub at Biology E8A (delivers Wednesday morning). Hub name is MACQUARIE04.
5. Next Meeting
May 2015 – date and venue to be determined.