Green Efforts in Vain: Why our university sectors need to sit down and talk about long term Environmental efforts

(My November column in The LaSallian)

Commendable efforts from different sectors in the University need to be recognized in initiating projects that pushes for an environment friendly school. These efforts seem to be sincere in achieving university-wide transformation so we can claim a green campus. However, this will only be in vain if sectors in the University fail to understand a system-wide approach to a development problem. It will still be fruitless if no higher policy-making body, such as administrators, will properly set a vision and initiate reforms that will drive and integrate efforts in the University to realize an environmentally sustainable institution. More importantly, walls separating students, faculty, and administration need to be taken down. This illusion of having conflicting missions can be proven wrong because the mission of one is the mission of all.

 Under De La Salle Philippines (DLSP) is Lasallian Institute for the Environment (LIFE) which seems to be the example that Leith Sharp, Director of Harvard Green Campus Initiative, is mentioning about the usual response of universities to the pressures of environmental calls. In her paper Green Campuses: The Road from Little Victories to Systemic Transformation, she shares that the common solution that universities come up with is a committee or an organization that is immediately assumed to eventually provide goals and strategies that will effectively mobilize people to act for environmental welfare. However, its failure to understand the complexity of a University as an organization coupled with its severe limitations “quickly forces it to shift their focus from broad reaching systematic transformation to well-bounded projects with lower levels of participation, losing significant momentum and breadth in their organizational impact.”

 LIFE even has a bigger challenge of influencing transformational change in La Salle campuses because it is a separate organization that appears to merely solicit efforts from DLSP schools. It does not have direct influence in decision-making bodies or powers to implement mechanisms to reform cultural change relevant to environment sustainability. LIFE is using the schools as a medium to educate people for their propaganda.  But their venue for teaching, means, and expertise to teach are comparably less than the ones available for teachers in La Salle schools. What if LIFE finds ways to integrate their message through the teachers’ lessons? If they will not be able to find ways to intensify programs that can be felt every day, the level of success in LIFE’s projects will remain having little effect on one’s consciousness. It would be good if LIFE can have a visible local chapter in each La Salle school with decentralized power as its characteristic. This will allow them to be adaptive and highly responsive because they will be able to immediately see new opportunities for the school given limited resources, but still aligned with a vision set by DLSP.

 

G. F. Abito, author of Environmental Education, Training and Research in the Philippines, says that initiatives to solve development problems have tendencies to attack in a “piece-meal, segmented fashion.” As he was referring to government agencies, he mentioned the problem also exist in private institutions such as universities. It is evident that there are fragmented efforts in the University but we have to know the difference between project success and systematic transformation.

 The success of Zero-Styro by the Student Council (SC) is highly commendable given it needed a great deal of coordination among policy makers in the University such as the Canteen Committee and Administration.  The Buildings and Grounds Maintenance Office has its own project of producing seedlings from the fallen fruits of the trees in the University. They have now several hundreds of seedlings and young trees ready for planting but do not have definite plan where to give them. Some faculty members are also encouraging students to print on scratch papers. Imagine if the number of 1029 faculty members listed in the DLSU website required all term papers to be printed on scratch? It can be seen that there really are some efforts from different sectors. But are these little victories the start and end of its own cause? A vision and specific goal could have been provided by a higher and integrating body such as Vice Chancellor level administration that will integrate efforts from different sectors that will ensure environmental sustainability.

 Doing so is not easy because there is a big challenge of bringing down “inherent tension within the power structure of the university organization as a result of the delegation of and struggle for power.” Sharp mentioned this when she was describing the difficulty of realizing wide participation from students, faculty, and administration. If the University will be serious in making a genuine green campus, our President should initiate a dialogue with all the sectors mentioned and include environmental programs in the school’s strategies. They could also include LIFE so that the sectors can provide ideas on how they can involve themselves and be felt locally.

 Students have been acknowledged by Sharp to have the political power to be effective catalysts for institutional transformation to achieve environmentally sustainable universities. But they will just simply be a “match that can’t find the fuel” if they will not be trained with the proper skills needed. On the other hand, faculty members do not involve themselves much in campus operations because these kinds of tasks have been given to the administrative staff, having them focus on teaching and research. Few attempt to influence decisions made in campus like when U-Break was proposed to be moved to Monday. When Dr. Ricardo Puno was asked regarding the stand of professors regarding the move, as long as it does not unduly harm the welfare of professors, they are not against it. Even in Harvard, Sharp was only able to determine six faculty members who are willing to devote their time to university environmental issues because most choose to focus on their researches and teaching. If there is any faculty member in the University who is willing to do the same, make yourself heard! Send us a letter and we will echo your sentiment.

 Pursuing an environmentally sustainable institution is not just a question of wanting people to be aware. It is an organizational change that requires reforms of policies across different sectors in the University. But in order to do this, a prerequisite of understanding on how university processes and division of subcultures needs to be understood before a vision can be shared. We need a long term map from our top level administrators and at the same time decentralized power to smaller units in the University for them to be flexible and highly responsive to everyday opportunities given lack of resources. Most importantly, we need to integrate ourselves so that our small victories are gearing towards a bigger goal—to be agents of change that we want to see.