The collaboration for Rio+20 continues to grow with 10 international associations now involved!

As Rio+20 draws nearer, tertiary education associations are flocking to join ACTS, AASHE and EAUC to add more voices to the role further and higher education can play in realising sustainable development and poverty eradication. The list of those involved now includes:

• ACTS (Australia/New Zealand)
• AASHE (USA/Canada)
• EAUC (UK)
• KAGCI (Korea)
• GUNI (International based in Europe)
• Copernicus (International based in Europe)
• Fondaterra (French)
• UNEP (International)
• MESA (African)

ProSPER.net is also in the process of making a Board decision on whether to join the collaboration.

With the release of the Zero Draft document, the collaboration is in the process of formulating a response with recommended changes and actions, whilst also preparing for a side event to be held during the UNCSD conference in Rio in June.

The collaboration and the Rio+20 process is an exciting and monumental opportunity to further the place tertiary education has in global change and ACTS looks forward to being involved and involving our members in what is happening.

2011 actions

ACTS, in collaboration with EAUC, AASHE, KAGCI and GUNI developed a tertiary education statement to respond to Rio+20 discussions occurring June 2012.

When the original Rio Conference was held in 1992 and produced Agenda 21, The United Nations Programme of Action from Rio, there was limited discussion among those in the tertiary education community about the contributions and role that tertiary education could make to expand an understanding of sustainable development through the research, educational activities and operational modeling of sustainable practices.  Consequently, there is little in Agenda 21 that references the role of tertiary education in sustainable development [1].

However, much has changed in the past two decades. Around the world in a variety of national and cultural contexts, tertiary education has become a significant force in the discussion and implementation of sustainable development. Tertiary education institutions have demonstrated that they can and must address issues of sustainability in not only operations and administration but through teaching and research.  Indeed, in the best circumstances these are woven together so that sustainable development is demonstrated in an integrated way to enable an institution’s internal community to understand (through practice) sustainable development and to extend that understanding throughout the surrounding community.

For too long the critical role that tertiary education can, should and does play in making changes towards sustainable development has gone underrepresented or unrecognised at an international level. Now is the time for the tertiary sector to stand together to show the impact that we can have. One way to progress the agenda of tertiary education is to respond to Rio + 20 processes by submitting a position paper or statement.

The purpose of the ACTS statement is two fold. It was firstly a stand alone submission for the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (referred to as Rio+20) process, as well as being used to collate with the aforementioned organisations for a united tertiary education response. The idea was for both statements to influence the Zero Draft document developed for the actual discussion in Rio next year.

To this end, we offer the finalised ACTS statement for your information. Thank you to those colleagues who actively participated in developing this document:

Leanne Denby - Macquarie University
Danielle Rostan-Herbert – University of Melbourne
Corey Peterson – University of Tasmania
Audette Benson – Northern Sydney Institute of TAFE
Cathy Horan – Northern Sydney Institute of TAFE
Carlene Kirvan – Macquarie University
Brett Sharman – Griffith University
Jennifer Klippel – Wodonga TAFE
Stephen Derrick – Monash University
Aaron Magner – University of New South Wales
Geoff Dennis – University of Queensland
Clem Campbell – Griffith University
John Hassall – La Trobe University
Ed Maher – Charles Sturt University
Sam Kashuk – Victoria University
Lesley Stone – University of Auckland
Lania Lynch –  James Cook University
Delwyn Langdon – Griffith University
John Rafferty – Charles Sturt University
Jonathan Pheasant – University of Adelaide
Rowena Scott – Edith Cowan University

Please note: A few things you should know about the statement. We included feedback provided during the session run at the ACTS Conference in Adelaide in September. The actual format of the document follows the Major Groups and Stakeholder Asia Pacific submission, and in fact draws from that document for some of the gaps left in answering the questions posed to ensure we respond appropriately to the submission guidelines. You will notice that the terminology used is consistently ‘sustainable development’ and not sustainability. We have taken the lead from the UN in this regard, who only refer to sustainable development, and in doing so have tried to minimise confusion in terms used.