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NTU moving towards a green futureThe latest five year strategic plan that NTU unveiled last year has Sustainable Earth as one of the five multi-disciplinary Peaks of Excellence that NTU plans to put a global stamp on and continuous efforts are being made every single day to achieve this goal.

Recognizing the environment friendly measures undertaken, NTU was awarded the Green Mark Platinum Award from the Build-ing and Construction Authority (BCA) for adopting best practices in environmental sustainability. The Green Mark Platinum Award is Singapore’s nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction, operation of high performance green buildings.

The Green Mark Awards recognized NTU’s School of Art, Design and Media building for its significant energy and water savings per annum. The major areas of achievement for the ADM building were its energy savings of almost 120,000 kWh per year and more than 1,170 cubic metres of water saved per annum, leading to lower operation and main-tenance costs.

The savings are due to the building’s

energy and water efficient features which include its high-efficient lights with motion and photo-cell sensors, retrofitted air-conditioning system as well as rainwater collection with rain sensors and irrigation system. The green roof and high perform-ance glass as well as the use of carbon dioxide sensors in its air-handling units help

to reduce energy used and maintain a healthy indoor air quality.

Another significant step taken by NTU towards its goal of sustainability is the announcement that NTU is investing close to three million dollars over a period of three

years for setting up a research center that will pioneer the development of solar cells, as well as the expertise to harness these new clean energy sources effectively and in com-mercially viable ways. The Centre for Nanos-tructured Photosystems will also aim to develop new systems to harvest solar energy and, at the same time, encourage long-term market viability. With big strides in ensuring sustainability as well as numerous other small steps taken, NTU is surely going the green way.

NTU was awarded the Green Mark Platinum Award from the Building and Construc-tion Authority (BCA) for adopting best practices in environmental sustainability.

School of Art, Design and Media building, NTU.

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Making NTU an environmentally friendly university!Most of you would have noticed NTU Earthlink’s effort to reduce the use of paper by making double-sided printing the default setting for all printers at NTU. This definitely would have prevented the less environmentally-conscious among us from wasting paper. For those of us who consciously used to select the double-sided option, however, this initiative might not have made a big difference to our carbon footprint. Regardless of which group you lean towards, here are a few more ways you, as an individual or in a group, can help to make NTU more environmentally friendly.

3. Transport around school.

Last year, NTU worked with partner universities to create GreenLite, a truly eco-friendly bus that only emits clean water. While it may take a while before such buses can become the sole mode of transport in Singapore or even in the University, there are other ways we can help NTU be eco-friendly. If you need to get from one place to another within the University, consider walking instead of taking the shuttle buses. Sometimes, walking briskly will get you to your destination faster than waiting for and boarding the shuttle buses. If you stay on campus, encourage discus-sions about purchasing a set of bicycles for your hall that residents can borrow to get around school.

1. Only print what you need!

A lot of students take notes and read notes on their laptops, which goes a long way towards saving paper. If you prefer printing your readings and notes, print only the pages you require. Print multiple pages per sheet, espe-cially for long articles. Spend some time arranging the material to print to ensure that you don’t end up with just a few lines of notes on your last page. Every minute you spend thinking about whether you need it printed and arranging your material will help towards less wastage in NTU. Recycling pages that you do not need anymore is another way of ensuring that there is minimum wastage.

2. Controlling the air-conditioning in lecture theatres and tutorial rooms.

Most of you would be familiar with the feeling of step-ping into a freezer, when you have lectures and tutorials on a rainy day. Take the initiative to gather a bunch of friends and request that the temperature be increased. Perhaps we can look to installing individual controls in every room, to ensure that it is easier for students to be able to adjust the temperature themselves, instead of assuming that it is beyond their means.

Most importantly, share other ideas you may have with your friends! Small initiatives by individuals can have far-reaching consequences for the University.

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Earthlink: Help make NTU greener

Let’s find out about how you can take a more active role in participating in the green movement at NTU. Earthlink is the only environmental club in Nanyang Technological University since 1993 and has been promoting environmentalism among all staff and students of NTU, aiming to address climate change in small, achievable and measureable ways. This is an overview of all the activities that you can contribute to.

Every year, the EAC aims to increase the awareness in the general student population on campus about environmental issues and concerns by showcasing different aspects of environmental conservation such as recycling, reducing waste and taking an initiative like bringing your own bag. In the past years, this event has tried to convey the green message by combining educa-tion with fun and conducting games as well as giving away plants for the students to keep.

Environmental Awareness Campaign

Ecoventure is an annual overseas outreach program with the aim of nature conservation. The objective of EcoVen-ture is to spread the green message among the NTU students as well as people living in other parts of the world. As such, a special project committee organizes an overseas eco-trip once a year to places where NTU students are able to perceive the environment in a new way. Last year, a water filtration unit was installed in Buru, Indonesia under this project.

EcoVenture

Due to Earthlink’s efforts, the Bring Your Own Bag cam-paign was started at all supermarkets to reduce the consumption of plastic. For every plastic bag taken, the customer has to play 10 cents. The campaign management at Earthlink has also made the double sided printing at all NTU libraries a default setting. The committee further plans to extend its efforts to reducing the use of Styrofoam in canteens.

BYOB

Visit our website at clubs.ntu.edu.sg/earthlink/

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Sample comics for indication only. Source: http://www.grinningplanet.com/environmental-cartoons/green-toons-comics-com.htm