Overview
At school, there are many numerous groups and committees, each with their own various responsibilities and values. One such group is the sustainability committee. The committee was created to handle all things sustainability-related at the school, from holding sustainability forums with other schools, to using more sustainable packaging at the school cafeteria, to completely revamping the bin system used during day-to-day school life. The committee meets every second week during lunch on Mondays and is headed by a small group of students who discuss the various issues and other notable things in the school.
8.4.19
The committee discusses the creation of an interschool sustainability forum.
6.5.19
The committee discusses the hosting of a multi-school roundtable discussion as well as a number of guest speakers to potentially come to the school, including at the forum itself.
20.5.19
The committee discussed the sustainability Instagram page run by some of the boys, I mentioned the need to easily label cafeteria meals with recyclable or non-recyclable stickers amidst the lack of packaging from the cafeteria being responsibly disposed of.
11.6.19
On this day the sustainability committee hosted the long-planned Interschool Sustainability Conference. We invited a number of other schools to participate in the conference including MLC, PLC, Marrickville High, Newtown Performing Arts and Kambala with each school sending a small group of people to listen to the guest speakers as well as to discuss a variety of topics with boys from our school and others. We had two guest speakers who came to talk to us; these were Professor Phil McManus, Head of the School of Geosciences at the University of Sydney as well as Mr Seb Crawford, sustainability coordinator at the University of Technology Sydney. Each of the guest speakers delivered interesting speeches which related to our own sustainability practices in some way, as well as relating to the bigger picture of global sustainability. I felt that the guest speakers gave us a much clearer idea of the kinds of things the committee could do to effectively promote sustainability in the school as well as in the wider community, I found it very helpful to be able to talk directly to a professional about issues relating to sustainability.