The Influencers: Jan Evans-Freeman

Sustainability goals.

My exciting new role is to deliver the university’s environmental sustainability goals from its Strategic Vision 2020-2030.

These include being carbon net neutral by 2030 and significantly raising awareness of sustainability and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) across all aspects of university life.

Operating in a more sustainable way is a critical issue facing all of society and is strongly supported by our staff and our students, who are increasingly concerned about how universities are taking action and leading on climate change and other urgent sustainability matters.

My appointment tops a year of sustainability action at the university, where activities were recently aligned to each of the SDGs and captured in the university’s first SDG update. This shows some 100 examples of research breakthroughs, awards, initiatives to support diversity and equality on campus, and of course developments in education, such as new programmes, that all contribute to a more sustainable world.

The university also recently hosted the 2020-2021 Aotearoa SDG Summit Series, with Lincoln University, Ara Institute of Canterbury, Christchurch City Council and other partners. The series drew over 900 participants and 83 speakers from the research, community, business and government sectors, resulting in an SDG Summit Declaration, signed by almost 200 organisations, a national SDG Alliance and 75 video recordings of sessions that are available online to the public.

That’s just the start.