The “Green Campus Summit” (GCS-2013), organized by the APSCC, under the auspices of the Research and Transfer Centre “Applications of Life Sciences” of the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (Germany), Pondicherry University (India), London Metropolitan University (UK), and Pondicherry Pollution Control Committee- Government of Puducherry took place in Puducherry, India, on 4-5 April 2013. The aims of the GCS-2013 were: to provide Universities and Higher Educational Institutions all round the world with an opportunity to display and present their works on campus greening initiatives; to foster the exchange of information, and dissemination of knowledge, ideas and experiences; to promote adopting/ implementing strategies for campus sustainability; to discuss methodological approaches for campus greening projects and provide opportunity to showcase thought leadership; to network the participants and provide a platform so they can explore possibilities for cooperation and collaboration. GCS-2013 was attended by over 200 delegates from 12 countries –representing both industrialized and developing geographical regions- and was a great success. The delegates included several leading experts/ practitioners on green campus and sustainability from around the world. Apart from the plenary lectures from the experts around the world on the state of the art knowledge and practices on the subject, the technical sessions covered important topics such as: Action research and Models of Campus Greening Initiatives, Environment Education and Curriculum Development, Green Building/ Architecture/ Land Use, Energy Management/ Energy Conservation/ Green Chemistry, Waste Management/ Water Management/ Water Treatment/ Transportation and Campus Ecology/ Biodiversity/ Food Services and Food Security.
A summary of the event and follow-up activities are as follows:
- It was unanimously agreed by the conference participants that integrating the principles and the concepts of green campus and sustainability into the core of students’ academic experiences from the high school to College/University levels will ensure that the current and future student communities will acquire the required knowledge, skills, attitudes and values necessary to create a more sustainable economy and social environment in the future. It was also agreed that commitments at institutional level is more likely to make a positive difference and help progress towards a sustainable future.
- As an attempt to promote and disseminate the work performed by attendees to GCS-2013, the book “Implementing Campus Greening Initiatives: Approaches, Methods and Perspectives” will be launched with selected papers from the summit. This will be a further volume of the award-winning book series “Environmental Education, Communication and Sustainability” (started in 1998). This ground-breaking publication on the theory and practice of sustainable development will be one of the most comprehensive publications on sustainability at universities ever produced, focusing on both industrialized and developing nations. The GCS-2013 Team will be implementing the above and achieve synergies with other on-going activities.
