ACTS Board Member Spotlight: Ed Maher, Charles Sturt University

For this member spotlight we are delighted to feature ACTS Treasurer – Ed Maher.

Ed Maher is a long-standing sustainability leader in the tertiary education sector and currently serves as Manager, Sustainability at Charles Sturt University. With over a decade of involvement in ACTS, Ed has contributed significantly to the organisation’s growth and governance, including in his current role as ACTS Treasurer. His passion for climate action and practical sustainability has helped shape Charles Sturt’s leadership in the sector, most notably through pioneering initiatives in carbon neutrality and renewable energy. Through both his institutional work and ACTS involvement, Ed remains deeply committed to creating lasting environmental change and supporting a strong community of sustainability professionals.

Ed has been an ACTS member since 2009, bringing with him a longstanding commitment to advancing sustainability in the tertiary education sector. Prior to joining Charles Sturt University, he had already engaged with ACTS in a previous role and recognised its influence in fostering sustainability leadership across institutions.

“When I joined Charles Sturt, I was the only sustainability professional at the university,” Ed explains. “Connecting with peers at other institutions through ACTS gave me a sense of support and a valuable opportunity to learn from best practices being implemented across the sector.”

For Ed, nothing quite compares to the ACTS annual conference. The sense of community, collaboration, and shared purpose is what keeps him coming back each year.

“I really value the face-to-face events—it’s an opportunity to exchange ideas, talk through shared challenges, and re-energise through meaningful connection,” he says. “It’s also a great way to reconnect with long-standing colleagues and to warmly welcome those attending for the first time.”

Among a career filled with impact, Ed is particularly proud of two standout achievements at Charles Sturt University. The first: leading Charles Sturt to become Australia’s first Certified Carbon Neutral university in 2015. The second followed soon after in 2016, with the delivery of Australia’s largest single-site rooftop solar installation at the time, located at the university’s Wagga Wagga campus. These milestones reflect Ed’s commitment to tangible, large-scale change that puts Charles Sturt at the forefront of climate action.

“An engineer,” Ed says—fitting, given his passion for solving complex sustainability problems and building systems for a better future.

You’ll find Ed outdoors—whether he’s tending to his family’s small farm on the outskirts of Wagga Wagga, heading off on a camping trip, or (as his wife describes it) “poking around in the shed.”