Ruyton's commitment to becoming a more sustainable community began several years ago. This is the fourth year that a report on our achievements and performance has been included in the annual Speech Night Report. Each year, new initiatives are undertaken, but more importantly, each new and existing sustainability-related activity has progressively become institutionalised as part of "the way things are done" at our school.
Climate change and its potential solutions continue to occupy a substantial space in political and social debates. Given the increasing magnitude and complexity of the issue, there exists a risk that members of the community, including young people, will disengage and become de-sensitised to the debate. There exists also the risk that they may lose sight of their own capacity to make a difference and their ability to commit themselves to act positively to reduce their environmental impact. For this reason, many of the new activities introduced in 2009 have focused on promoting actions that students can identify with which make a difference, including participation in awareness raising and activism campaigns both within and outside the school. Details of the events are included in the Key Achievements summary below.
Students for Sustainability
Student leadership of Sustainability within the school remains a keystone of our approach, and this year has seen the first year for the role of School Sustainability Captain. Anna Power is to be commended on her inspired leadership of Students for Sustainability and her enthusiastic promotion of environmental issues to the whole school.
As 2009 draws to a close, the School is excited to announce that we have recently reached a deal with our main electricity supplier to purchase Government Accredited Green Power for its main electricity account. The actual percentage of Green Power will vary depending on consumption, but we are hoping that it will be close to 100%. This action shows the school's ongoing commitment to our environmental future. Based on previous year figures, this action will reduce our production of Greenhouse Gases (CO2 equivalent) by around 500 tonnes per year.
Community Engagement and Sustainable Travel
The Link-A-Lift Online Carpooling System
This year, Ruyton has partnered with the Department of Transport to become the first and only school in Victoria to operate an internet-based car-pooling system. The programme was launched by Jennifer Huppert, local member of the Legislative Council, with representatives of the City of Boroondara and Department of Transport in attendance. The Junior School Marketing team created an imaginative logo and bookmark that was distributed to all students to promote the project.
The Link-A-Lift site can be found at: http://ruyton.schoolcarpool.org.au. Parents may have seen the launch reported in the Melbourne Times and Progress Leader.
FOREST - Friends of Ruyton for Environmental Sustainability and TravelSmart
The first activities of the Ruyton parent group FOREST took place, providing a formal opportunity for Ruyton parents to be involved in sustainability-related activities at Ruyton. FOREST supported the Climate Change Human Sign along the St Kilda foreshore and National Tree Day, including the distribution of free native seeds to all Junior School girls.
ResourceSmart Schools (RSS)
Ruyton received formal accreditation this year for transition to the ResourceSmart Schools (RSS) 5 Star Certification system, which places schools alongside State and Local Governments, venues and businesses across Victoria in their sustainability achievements.
We were selected as one of twenty Victorian schools to be offered a free place to undertake the ResourceSmart Schools "Energy" module in 2010. Our involvement will include a formal energy audit of the school.
TravelSmart and the Walking School Buses
Regular TravelSmart Walk to School days in both the Junior and Senior Schools have been held, together with the continued operation of the Walking School Bus (WSB), now on three regular routes. These programmes are supported by the wonderful efforts of the volunteer co-ordinator, drivers and conductors.
Expert Speakers at Assembly
Numerous expert speakers from outside the school spoke to Senior School Assemblies, including a World Environment Day presentation by Ellen Sandell from the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, and an International Women's Day presentation from VCE Achiever of the Year and environmental activist, Linh Do.
• Ruyton appointed Ms Linh Do as Patron of Sustainability. She will work with students as a facilitator, assisting girls to develop their networking and leadership skills and connections to external activities.
National Tree Day
More than 30 students, staff and parents planted over 1100 native plants as part of National Tree Day.
STUDENT LEADERSHIP AND ACTIVISM
Co-mingled Recycling at Ruyton
This year has seen the continued operation of our co-mingled recycling scheme. The scheme is operated by the members of Students for Sustainability, who have also explained the logistics of "Recycling at Ruyton" to their peers during Assembly presentations. Empty printing cartridges and other computer consumables continue to be collected by Mr Jim Maunder at the ICT Help Desk, and recycled through the Close the Loop Programme.
Worm Farms
The Worm Farms Programme in the Junior School continues to convert lunch waste into food for the Preps' Vegetable Garden and a worm farm has now been introduced in the Senior School.
Environmental Events at School
Celebrations of Green Days, No Heater Day, Earth Hour and World Environment Day have all become a feature of the school calendar. On each of these occasions, the Students for Sustainability or the Green Team in the Junior School promoted activities to engage the broader school community. Activities have included:
- Measuring and reporting back on energy savings made on No Heater Day;
- A Sustainability Quiz and Enviro-Pledge Poster on World Environment Day;
- Collecting signatures for the "Don't Palm Us Off" anti-Palm Oil campaign and promoting mobile phone recycling on Green Day; and
- Promoting the Youth Decide national climate change vote.
For Ruyton's Earth Hour, the whole school turned out its lights, in support of the symbolic global action that takes place each year.
With each of these activities, the girls provided environmental leadership and encouraged the engagement of their peers with activism that had a positive impact beyond the environs of the school.
The Students for Sustainability have also launched an anti-water bottle campaign, publicising the damaging environmental impacts of single-use plastic water bottles and encouraging their reduced use within the Senior School.
The "Rubbish Free Lunch Competition" in Year 7 was also inaugurated, with students from each form competing to produce the least amount of rubbish from their daily lunches.
Sustainability Themes within the Curriculum
Sustainability themes continue to be included across the curriculum. In addition to subjects such as Geography, where the theme is substantially environmentally-focused, other cross-curricular sustainability themes include:
- Energy and reducing our ecological footprint as a key theme in Year 8 Science;
- Year 9 and Unit 4 French students studying environmental problems and what can be done about them;
- Students in the Economics and the Environment elective completing a school "lighting audit" and developing a report with recommendations on which areas of the school could be "delamped" to reduce energy consumption; and
- The use of recycled materials for Art projects.
Infrastructure and Facilities
There have been numerous sustainability-related improvements to School facilities and infrastructure, including installation of further water tanks and re-upholstering of the seating in Royce Theatre using Eco-Wool. Of particular note is the installation of a new printing, photocopying and scanning system. The machines were chosen with consideration for their suitability for using recycled paper, plant-based toner and the recycling options for the end of machine life. The new machines enhance scanning capabilities and allow for double-sided printing for all staff. It is anticipated this will reduce paper use into the future.
Sustainable design will also be a feature of the Junior School redevelopment in 2010, including installation of a large water tank, use of natural light, sustainable heating and cooling options and a dedicated location for a vegetable garden.
Measuring our Resource use
An important responsibility in becoming a more sustainable school is a commitment to measure our impact on the environment and take steps to reduce our negative impact. When Ruyton commenced the Sustainable Schools process at the beginning of 2007, a State of the School Report was completed. The Report provided a snapshot of the school and recorded data on resource use, waste disposal and travel modes, along with an audit of curriculum and an overview of our existing environmental operations and practices at the time.
In 2008, Ruyton joined the SETS (Schools Environment Tracking System) programme, an online reporting programme for all schools involved in the ResourceSmart Schools Project. The school's resource use data is entered into the programme, which provides annual reports on resource consumption. In each successive year, information is provided on the performance of the school in specific areas of resource use, compared to the previous year.
ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE
Electricity and Gas Useage
An important change to the school's resource use profile since 2008 has been the commencement of operation of the Aquatic Centre. As would be expected, adding a large new facility to the school resulted in an overall increase in our use of electricity, gas and water. It is a policy of the Board to review annually the performance of the Aquatic Centre, considering resource-saving features that could be implemented as advances in technology become available.
In addition, the school's enrolment has also expanded substantially over the years of our involvement in the Sustainable Schools and ResourceSmart Schools Programmes.
It is worth noting the following figures:
• Electricity: For the first nine months of 2009, to the end of September, there was an increase in the amount of electricity used by approximately 14%, compared to the corresponding nine month period in 2008.
Fortunately, our electricity billing arrangements have allowed us to isolate the area of increase, and identify the increase as stemming solely from the Aquatic Centre. Once the useage of electricity for the Aquatic Centre is removed, there was a decrease of 1.7% in use of electricity across the rest of the school.
Water Useage
For the first nine months of 2009, compared to the corresponding nine months of 2008, the school's water usage had increased by 17%. The Aquatic Centre accounts for approximately 30% of this, and all of the increase in the school's water useage is accounted for by the pool. Once water useage for the Aquatic Centre is removed, the school's water useage can be seen to have remained steady over the period measured.
In response to the urgent need to conserve water, the school has installed further water tanks this year and, as outlined above, a water tank is planned for the Junior School redevelopment in 2010. The school is currently investigating the options for the installation of a reverse osmosis system which will allow waste water from the pool to be re-used in other areas.
Waste
For the first nine months of 2009, to the end of September, there was a decrease of 3.6% in the amount of school waste sent to landfill, compared to the corresponding nine month period in 2008.
In addition, the school diverted more than 24 cubic metres of waste from landfill through the recycling of paper waste.
The co-mingled recycling system has diverted a minimum of 240L of recyclables from landfill each week of term for the school year, which has reduced our waste by approximately 9 cubic metres for the year.
This data supports the anecdotal evidence that the promotion of Rubbish Free Lunch days and Five Star Lunches in the Junior School and Year 7, along with increased paper and cardboard recycling and the continued operation of the co-mingled recycling system, have had a positive impact on the waste produced by the school.
Transport
Regular Walk to School Days and Walking School Bus routes have resulted in an increased tendency to walk in the Junior School and increased promotion of the use of public transport in the Senior School. The Walking School Bus programme was extended to three routes in 2008, and the introduction of the Link-A-Lift online carpooling programme will allow interested families to search for other School families to share a lift to or from School. It is hoped the programme will have positive knock-on effects for activities such as before- or after-school sport or early morning orchestra practice, for example.
Paper Useage
The School's paper useage increased by 11% during the first nine months of 2009, compared to the corresponding period in 2008. The School used almost 300 more reams of paper in 2009 than during the same period in 2008, and there remains room for improvement. With this in mind, the school continues to work on addressing our useage of paper. The introduction of duplex (double-sided) printing and improved scanning facilities for all staff is anticipated to reduce paper use in the future.
Ms Timmee Grinham, Co-ordinator of Sustainability
FOREST Connecting Parent Groups