[Tutorial 3 Reflection] Campus Sustainability

Often times, we do not know that our current behaviours are unsustainable, unless someone intervenes and bring awareness. For example, in Canada when I purchase canned soft drinks, a recycling tax imposed by the government would be embedded at my point of purchase at a local supermarket. Therefore, it encourages me to bring the cans to a recycling depot to be given back my money.

One way to change behaviours on a local scale is to involve businesses to embed sustainable practices in there activities, so that consumers can learn from their daily transactions. Business can intervene by providing incentives and rewards for their customers. This challenges our current behaviours and allows us to understand how to become more sustainable through being rewarded for doing the correct thing. For example, in our collaboration with ANU, a student provided the example of Project Tumbler which is a Starbucks campaign held at the NUS campus store. Students receive the reward of 50 cents off their drink when they collect 5 stamps, on a stamp card that each student was given by Starbucks. As a result, we can see more students bringing in their own tumbler and a reduction in disposable coffee cups in the campus.

Moreover, business also needs the motivation for adopting more sustainable practices. Therefore, I believe that national government would also need to intervene by providing regulations and incentives for companies to engage in sustainability practices. Changing behaviours on a local scale with local businesses requires the leadership from the national stage. For my research on how Hong Kong combats carbon emission for my collaborative project, the Hong Kong government provides incentives for the two power companies (Hong Kong Electric and China Light & Power) based on their energy performance from their energy audits and sets it into their licensing agreements. This encouraged the power companies to take their own initiatives to increase their power performance. Indeed, they did it through setting up a loan fund that engages their non-government customers to implement energy saving initiatives (1).

Incentives when given as a reward for doing the right thing can be a useful tool for changing peoples' behaviours on environmental sustainability.

References

(1) http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/201106/01/P201106010153.htm

Image Sources

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