American University of Sharjah (AUS) wins Best Green Campus Audit
Channel: AUSharjah
Date: 27/01/2021

American University of Sharjah (AUS) was declared winner of the Best Green Campus Audit at the Sustainable Campus Initiative (SCI) in a virtual award ceremony organized by the Abu Dhabi Environment Agency recently.


The win was based on work done by the 2019¬¬–2020 AUS Green Team, a group of 23 students and alumni from various majors from across AUS, mentored by faculty members from the College of Arts and Sciences and staff from the AUS Sustainability office.


The Sustainable Campus Initiative, sponsored by Borouge, aims to harness the energy, innovation and tenacity of the youth to discover new environmental solutions for the world's most challenging issues. More than 20 universities in the UAE competed in the initiative’s two categories: Green Campus Audit and Sustainable Action Project.


In the winning Green Campus Audit report, the AUS team measured and analyzed five sustainability indicators—land (biodiversity and land use), water, waste, energy and climate change—providing their recommendations and future targets.  The students’ work analyzed campus biodiversity by monitoring different species, the impact of microclimate (temperature and humidity) resulting from land use, daily water consumption and waste per capita, waste segregation and recycling, energy consumption per capita, and daily carbon dioxide emissions per capita. While students obtained relevant data with the assistance of the AUS Sustainability office, they had to also carry out their own analysis for several indicators, particularly general waste production and irrigation water use.


Environmental sciences student Ishraq Abdullah, who has participated in the Green Campus Audit since 2018, was part of the campus waste audit, which required the team members to weigh and measure the waste generated from the academic buildings.


Although a challenging task, the team’s analysis directly led to changes on campus, with AUS Sustainability improving campus waste segregation and recycling.


In the competition’s Sustainable Action Project category, the team developed 14 training videos in seven languages to raise awareness of waste separation and recycling for the diverse cleaning crews on campus. Mariam Jacobs, architecture alumna and project student coordinator, worked on the outreach and education campaign for recycling and the video production.


The AUS Green Team has been honored before in the SCI competition, winning at least one top award category in each of the previous competition cycles since 2016. AUS received the award for Best Green Campus Audit and Best Sustainability Action Project for a program it ran last year with high schools as part of the university’s Sharakah partnership program. Students were challenged to minimize consumption of single-use plastics through practical creative solutions.


AUS is widely recognized for its sustainability initiatives, and is the MENA region's best performing university in the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education’s Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System.


Members of the Green Team 2019¬–2020
Ahlam Khaldoune (Civil Engineering)
Mayada Farah (Civil Engineering)
Marya Buhlaigah (International Studies)
Amineh Moshref (Biology)
Sarah Tariq (Biology)
Dunia Halawa (Biology)
Aseel Amer (Biology)
Harshali Sajnani (Biology)
Mohamed Yousef (Environmental Science)
Navya Muraly (Marketing)
Mariam Jacobs Architecture)
 
Team Mentors
Dr. Sandra Knuteson, Senior Lecturer in Biology, Chemistry and Environmental Sciences
Dr. Fatin Samara, Associate Professor in Biology, Chemistry and Environmental Sciences
Dr. Jeniece Lusk, Assistant Professor in International Studies
Rose Armour, AUS Sustainability
Julia Macallister, AUS Sustainability


Read the full story at https://www.aus.edu/media/news/aus-wins-best-green-campus-audit-at-abu-dhabi-environment-agencys-sustainable-campus-initiative



-For more information about American University of Sharjah, please visit: https://www.aus.edu

-To know more about the latest events and news at AUS, follow us on:

  Facebook:   https://www.aus.edu/facebook

  Twitter:        https://www.aus.edu/twitter

  Instagram:  https://www.aus.edu/instagram

  LinkedIn:     https://www.aus.edu/linkedin