Sustainability Offices are special settings which assist initiatives within Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to coordinate their efforts and work in the field of sustainable development. The set-up of such offices is known to be an effective tool in supporting the implementation of sustainability initiatives on campuses, and in fostering awareness among students and staff on matters related to sustainable development. This is why many notable universities across the globe have established Offices of Sustainability as per the global best practices.
NUST established the “Office of Sustainability” as per international practices, to pledge the organization’s commitment to sustainability and establish institutional platform for effective collaboration with national, regional, and international stakeholders on sustainability initiatives.
The mandate of Office of Sustainability is to adopt UN SDGs framework to align core functions of NUST i.e Academics and Students’ engagement, Research and Innovation, Operations and Governance, and Stakeholders Management with the UN SDGs and global agenda 2030. This is the first-of-its-kind office in any university in Pakistan, aimed at transforming NUST as an SDG engaged University.
The office plans to establish cross-sectoral national and international partnerships to develop indigenous solutions, through interdisciplinary research and innovation, to address the impending challenges faced in achieving the SDGs, and simultaneously working on developing a model to assess NUST as a Living Lab for sustainability to test and co-create innovative technologies developed in-house, to ensure socio-economic impact of the research and innovation outcomes. The office would also overlook carbon footprint assessment, climate mitigation, and development of a cross-sectoral Climate Action Plan for the university and local community.
NUST Office of Sustainability also aims to engage and mobilize students on sustainability initiatives through student-run clubs like NUST Community Service Club, which completes 80,000 hours of volunteer work on average every year, and NUST Environmental Club, which holds awareness events on environment and Climate Crisis.
The author is Deputy Director at Office of Sustainability at National University of Sciences & Technology (NUST). She can be reached at [email protected],
