{"id":6278,"date":"2015-03-18T07:00:45","date_gmt":"2015-03-18T07:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=6278"},"modified":"2015-03-18T07:00:45","modified_gmt":"2015-03-18T07:00:45","slug":"what-do-you-call-a-group-of-university-estates-directors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2015\/03\/18\/what-do-you-call-a-group-of-university-estates-directors\/","title":{"rendered":"What do you call a group of University Estates Directors?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I wondered this when I was at the recent seminar on\u00a0<em>Designing &amp; Managing\u00a0Sustainable University Estates<\/em> that was hosted by <a href=\"www.ncup.org.uk\">NCUP<\/a> \u2013 the National Conference of University Professors.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-6279\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/65\/2015\/03\/NCUP_logo.jpg\" alt=\"NCUP_logo\" width=\"150\" height=\"114\" \/>I came to the conclusion that a 'concatenation'\u00a0might be appropriate, given how much carbon seems to feature in their preoccupations and deliberations. \u00a0I found the (rather poorly attended) seminar more stimulating than I'd anticipated, and was particularly engaged by presentations from ...<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em><strong>Sue Holmes<\/strong><\/em> \u2013 AUDE Perspectives \u2013 The Sustainable Estate \u2013 The Challenges and Conflicts of Greening our University Estate<\/li>\n<li><em><strong>Marcella Ucci<\/strong><\/em> \u2013 Sustainable Development: Impacts on Space &amp; Place in Higher Education<\/li>\n<li><em><strong>Richard Jackson<\/strong><\/em> \u2013 The Importance of Caring for our Universities Estate with Effective Facilities Management<\/li>\n<li><em><strong>William Box<\/strong><\/em> \u2013\u00a0Smart Metering and Behaviour Change; and<\/li>\n<li><em><strong>Jo Kemp<\/strong><\/em> \u2013 Student Participation in the Universities Green Agenda<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I had the task of commenting at the end from the perspective of student learning, and I was gratified by how many mentions that students got during the day \u2013 though their learning was less of a focus; Jo Kemp was an exception, here.<\/p>\n<p>I also used ideas from\u00a0the Economist's\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2014\/10\/24\/when-is-sustainability-more-than-just-efficiency\/\">Schumpeter<\/a>\u00a0column which, last summer, said that a\u00a0few pioneering businesses are now developing \u201csustainability policies\u201d worthy of the name. \u00a0The point being made was that many sustainability plans are just attempts at\u00a0greater efficiency in terms of energy, waste, and\u00a0logistics. \u00a0These are obvious things which increase sales and profits, and enhance shareholder value in the immediate term \u2013 or, if you're a university, help financial margins and bring\u00a0institutional prestige. \u00a0And, on a good day, bring educational value.<\/p>\n<p>But, Schumpeter says that these are not about sustainability because they have\u00a0little actual effect on the environment or social equity. \u00a0They do nothing, in other words, to restore natural or social capital. This seems\u00a0a good test. \u00a0Schumpeter says that, currently, few\u00a0organisations\u00a0put sustainability at the heart of what they do.<\/p>\n<p>The point of the article was\u00a0to identify those that are starting to go beyond this limited point and which are part of \"a new wave of sustainability plans\". \u00a0Here, targets relate, not just about the organization itself, but to suppliers and customers, and are about society at large and not just the environment. \u00a0Another test, I think.<\/p>\n<p>In this, sustainability becomes \"a core part of their strategy\" and not just a \"green way to cut costs\". \u00a0Schumpeter says that whilst these new policies may not pay for themselves in the immediate term, they do act to boost the long-term fundamentals. \u00a0The column ends with this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\"The first wave of sustainability rewarded itself. \u00a0The new wave will not do that. \u00a0It is more akin to investing now to have a licence to operate in future, when consumers, lobbyists and regulators will be ever more demanding about the way firms behave.\"<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It seems obvious that all this applies as much to universities as to other businesses. \u00a0Note, in particular, notice that word, <em>consumers<\/em>, which brings us back to students and learning, and the communities universities serve. \u00a0\u00a0As Jo Kemp had pointed out students are rightly becoming more demanding of everyone in universities. \u00a0They are developing higher expectations in a wide sense which apply, not just to what they learn, and how, but to how the institution interacts with them.<\/p>\n<p>I concluded by saying to those who'd survived to the end that, whatever a university job title may say, students\u00a0are now everyone's concern, and everyone has\u00a0a role in educating them.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I wondered this when I was at the recent seminar on\u00a0Designing &amp; Managing\u00a0Sustainable University Estates that was hosted by NCUP \u2013 the National Conference of University Professors. I came to the conclusion that a 'concatenation'\u00a0might be appropriate, given how much...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-talks-and-presentations"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6278\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}