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How It All Started

Sustainable Campus Office
Our Story

Sustainable Campus Office@UTHM

Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM) has put serious effort and commitment towards making its campus, its residents, and its ecosystem more sustainable. In July 2010, the Vice Chancellor of UTHM appointed a task force to develop a comprehensive vision for UTHM’s environmental sustainability efforts. In order for UTHM to address campus sustainability issues in a smart, systematic, organized, and efficient manner, UTHM’s first step was the creation of Sustainable Campus Office (SCO), which provides administrative leadership and coordination for the creation of green campus efforts at large.

 

SCO is a unit responsible for planning, developing and implementing smart and innovative sustainable solutions in the pursuit of an environmentally sustainable campus in UTHM. “Reengineering Sustainability” was created by the SCO team in February 2017 which means SCO has started its strategy to continuously rethink and redesign for the sustainable green business process in order to achieve fundamental improvements in an essential measures of performance such as cost, quality of service delivery and speed of changing. Through its Green Living Lab (GLL), SCO serves as a green hub to catalyze and coordinate a large scale university green effort towards sustainable campus ecosystem.

To achieve these, there are steps along a path of continual change, adaptation and improvement of SCO should be performed. UTHM is well-equipped to lead innovative sustainability initiatives with dedicated staffs, students and industry partners. Actively support and participate in UTHM sustainability activities so that the University maximizes its contribution to a sustainable future both by reducing its own emissions but crucially also to pave the way for others to follow.

Last but not least, UTHM has been striving to provide a pleasant, healthy and conducive environment where staff and students will feel happy to work. This is in line with the emphasis on health in addition to safety in the new standards. A happy and healthy person is more likely to take their work seriously and work safely regardless of time and place.

How it start

The History

May 2010

Sustainable Campus Unit (SCU) was established based on the decision of the UTHM Executive Committee Meeting No. 9/2010 dated 12 May 2010 and placed under the Office of Assistant Vice-Chancellor (Research, Innovation and Development) as the first attempt in establishing an entity in the University that leads to the implementation of a systematic, structured and efficient sustainable activities.

July 2010

As the continuation of the decision, on 1 July 2010 when YBhg. Dato’ Vice Chancellor appointed Mr. Abdul Zaki bin Abdul Wahid as the First Head of Sustainable Campus Unit and assisted by four (4) team members acting as program coordinators.

March 2014

Associate Prof Ir. Dr. Goh Hui Hwang was appointed as the Second Head of Sustainable Campus Unit focusing on energy efficiency utilisation in UTHM and establishing a greenhouse gas-related (GHG) database in UTHM campus. The team has successfully published UTHM Green Building Guidebook penned by University Energy Management and Efficiency Committee of the university (Jawatankuasa Pengurusan dan Kecekapan Tenaga Universiti-JPKTU).  A website known as MYCarbon Footprint ( http://uthm.carbon-footprints.com/ ) was created and several recommendations on Energy Efficiency Contracts (EPC) in the University development activities were started in order to reflect UTHM’s mission towards a more sustainable university. The Central Energy Efficiency Fund was also created by the team.

March 2016 – March 2019

Starting from March 2016 the Sustainable Campus Unit is led by Sr. Dr. Noralfishah Sulaiman as the Third Head of Sustainable Campus Unit in UTHM. It is administered by the Safety, Health & Environment Division (OSHE), Office of the Assistant Vice-Chancellor (Development, Facilities Management and ICT). Sr. Dr. Noralfishah is assisted by Mdm Napisah Basir (J29) to achieve the objectives of the formation of Sustainable Campus Unit in UTHM. The Sustainable Champion Team (SCT) was established in February 2017 to facilitate the achievement of the SCU’s objectives

April 2019 – present

In April 2019, the Executive Board of UTHM agreed to upgrade Sustainable Campus Unit to Sustainable Campus Office (SCO). The new SCO is led by Sr. Dr. Noralfishah Sulaiman as the Director of SCO. Sr. Dr. Noralfishah is managing the SCO together with Dr. Nur Shaylinda Mohd Zin as the Head of Department (Department of Sustainable Management & Engineering). SCO also received 1 Assistant Librarian, Mr Mohd Syarifudin Aris (S19) to assist SCO with the operation of SCO’s Recycling Centre – RPPS.