Rethinking events in higher and further education
A systemic sustainability Perspective
Citation
Shabajee, P, Hiom, D & Preist, C, 2013, ‘Rethinking events in higher and further education: A systemic sustainability Perspective’. in: Tomas Pernecky, Michael Lück (eds) Events Society and Sustainability: Critical and Contemporary Approaches. Taylor & Francis Group, pp. 58-76
Abstract
Planned events,1 such as those listed above, pervade the lives of those who work within universities and colleges. They are embedded into the fabric of the way that virtually every aspect of higher and further education (HE and FE) operate; spanning teaching and learning, research, operations and administration. If we spend more than a few minutes browsing any governance or operational document of a large institution, planned meetings and other kinds of events are
likely to tumble out. See Figure 4.1 as an illustration from the authors’ own institution, the University of Bristol. This was found as the first result by typing ‘governance university of bristol’ into Google [18-Nov-2011]. Precisely because planned events are integral to the fabric of our organisations, we can sometimes forget just how pervasive and significant they are. We may also not notice that they have some significant negative consequences. Within the last few years there has been an increasing awareness of anthropogenic climate change that has led to discussion pieces and editorials in academic and professional journals about the ‘carbon footprint’ of events, with titles such as (Shabajee and Curtis, 2012):
• ‘The need for sustain able conferences’ (Bonnett, 2006) • ‘Rethinking scientific meetings: an imperative in an era of climate change’
(Young, 2009) • ‘Why do we fly? Ecologists’ sins of emission’ (Fox et al., 2009) • ‘Are international medical conferences an outdated luxury the planet can’t
afford? Yes’ (Green, 2008) [and ‘No’ (Drife, 2008)]
It is in the context of the kinds of debates and questioning reflected in those journal articles that this chapter sits. It is based on the work and findings of the Greening Events Project, which was a short exploratory project (FebruaryNovember 2010), funded as part of the Greening ICT (Information and Communication Technology) Programme of the UK Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC). The Greening ICT Programme aims to ‘. . . support UK colleges and universities in reducing their energy use, plan for more sustain able use of ICT for the future and help chart the course to new technology en abled paradigms for the university and college of the future’ (JISC, 2011). The Greening Events Project investigated the potential sustain ability benefits and issues that arise from the use of information and communications technologies in the contexts of organised events. This chapter draws on the findings and issues that arose during the Greening Events Project to help meet the goals of this book; that is to prompt reflective and critical perspectives of events in the context of sustain ability. Our focus here is to highlight some of the novel perspectives taken by the project, for example looking at events as systems and as part of larger systems, a focus on changes driven by ICT innovations, and some of the more problematic and interesting questions that arise.
Full details in the University publications repository