UPM Vice Chancelor Professor Datuk Dr Mohd Fauzi Ramlan leading the ride
DUAL ROLES: A shared passion for recycling and sustainability led to a campaign which promotes carbon footprint reduction and healthy lifestyle in a local university
STUDENTS waiting for campus buses in the morning is a common sight at Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM).
Most would start lining up at the bus stop at least half an hour before lectures begin to avoid being late.
But a feasibility study conducted by the university suggests that students would get to class even faster if they were to walk or cycle instead.
Vice chancellor Professor Datuk Dr Mohd Fauzi Ramlan says: “It takes a maximum of five minutes to either walk or cycle on campus. Riding the bus takes longer than that.”
Yet only those from the faculties of Medicine and Engineering do so at the moment.
In an effort to encourage more students to reduce their carbon footprint and adopt a healthy lifestyle, UPM recently teamed up with Coca-Cola Malaysia to introduce the Recycle To Cycle programme, which allows students to rent bicycles on campus using a points system.
All they need to do is drop off recyclable items at designated collection centres in the university to collect the points.
The project comes some 40 years after Malaysia’s first bicycle advocate Gurmit Singh began promoting the habit of cycling for mobility (see accompanying article).
The collaboration between UPM and the beverage industry giant grew from their shared passion for recycling and sustainability.
General manager (Malaysia-Singapore-Brunei region) Gill McLaren says: “We feel it is important to educate youth on recycling and sustainability because they will become role models as they mature. They will discuss the issue with their families, which will make the effort sustainable from the cultural perspective too.”
McLaren believes UPM is deserving of the RM750,000 grant from the Coca-Cola Foundation to carry out the two-year project because of its status as the greenest university in Asia.
UPM was ranked sixth among 95 universities globally in the GreenMetric World University Ranking 2010 (GreenMetric), behind University of California, Berkeley, the United States; University of Nottingham, the United Kingdom; York University, Canada and Northeastern University, Boston, United States.
The league table takes account of tertiary institutions’ commitment to ensuring sustainability, the size and area of their green infrastructure and efficiency in energy use on campus.
In addition, they are also judged on their adoption of green technology, policy enforcement and supervision of transportation and sustainable waste management.
Although UPM dropped to 17th and 19th places in the last two years, it remains the only institution in Asia to successfully position itself among the world’s top 10 universities in GreenMetric to date.
The university has had some success with projects involving cycling and recycling in the past.
“We started promoting the use of bicycles on campus five years ago. Recycle To Cycle has reintroduced bicycles as a mode of transport to students,” says Mohd Fauzi.
Biology department head Professor Ahmad Ismail, a major proponent of the campaign in UPM, considers it an important milestone in the history of recycling in Malaysia.
“I do not know if any other university has done it before,” he says.
Universiti Sains Malaysia, for instance, had introduced a cycling on campus campaign several years ago but did not combine it with the recycling component.
Mohd Fauzi feels it is about time that such a project was being introduced. The timing of the campaign launch is perfect as students had just begun a new semester.
“I hope that 3,500 students will walk or cycle to class by September,” he adds.
The university community can also expect a series of promotional exercises all year-long.
“Preregistered student volunteers will cycle on campus to generate interest in the movement. They will also be on duty at the collection centre located at the Biology department,” says Ahmad, a professor of Wildlife and Ecotoxicology.
The proper facilities must be in place if the university wants students to cultivate the walking or cycling habit.
“Bicycle lanes and walkways will be constructed around campus next semester as an incentive for students to walk or bike,” he says.
There will also be substations along the bicycle and footpaths covering residential colleges, academic buildings and places in between them.
Each will be located only one minute apart by bicycle.
“This means that the next station is just a minute away if it rains,” says Mohd Fauzi.
He hopes that the practice will eventually spread across the entire campus.
“This will not only reduce carbon emissions but also vehicular accidents,” he adds.
The university intends to research into how the campaign has affected students’ health and well-being before the two-year project ends.
“We hope to gather information such as how much energy we have saved and how students’ health has improved from cycling daily,” says Ahmad.
It appears that the campus community is responding enthusiastically to the initiative.
“The number of volunteers increases daily. The management staff will cycle on campus every Friday as part of the campaign. I’m optimistic that this will produce a good result,” he adds.
McLaren foresees the programme carrying on for many years.
“Recyclable items which students leave at the centres will be sold and the money will be channelled into the project,” she says.
Mohd Fauzi expects Recycle To Cycle to go global.
“We already have a large network of international students on campus. If they buy into this idea, they may return to their respective countries and replicate it. It will set off a chain reaction,” he says.
Read more: Green campuses: Hop on the bicycle - Learning Curve - New Straits Times http://www.nst.com.my/channels/learning-curve/green-campuses-hop-on-the-bicycle-1.254833#ixzz2QPBLaHnN
