GCP Achievements

Sustainability Report Preparation

The preparation of the first baseline sustainability report of IUB that documents all environment and sustainability activities at IUB and sets targets for next year.

Environmental Policy Development

The first environmental policy of IUB for 2021 has been prepared and approved which sets the guideline for using the environmental resources of the IUB.

Volunteer Membership

The 100 volunteer students (gradually this number is increasing) have been selected that will demonstrate environmental values through their day-to-day activities at the campus.

Plastic Free July

The 100 volunteers have joined “Plastic Free July Eco challenge” at https://plasticfree.ecochallenge.org/. “Plastic Free July” is an Australian-founded 31-day global challenge that aims to reduce and refuse single-use plastics. By joining this program students of IUB have learned how to create plastic-free habits while prioritizing public health and safety as much as possible. Throughout this program, the students shared their progress, success, and reflections with fellow global Eco challengers. The combination of collective inspiration, camaraderie, and friendly competition has made the change a little easier and a lot more fun.

Plantation Campaigns

In a bid to increase green cover on university campuses, the Green Campus office also has started a unique “One student – one tree” program. In this program, each student is supposed to plant a tree at the beginning of the BS program. They should take full responsibility for this plant from the beginning until the end of their degree and the efforts of the students to make the IUB green will be acknowledged through marks. GCP has successfully conducted two programs of this initiative. In the first drive 2200 trees were planted in October 2021. The second drive has adopted the unique and more effective Miyawaki model of urban forestation. In this phase 4000 students participated in March 2022 from all departments of the university.

Environmental Awareness Initiatives

To create awareness about environment friendly activities on campus GCP, IUB keep bringing various activities and campaigns in accordance with the fundamental objectives of the project. In this connection GCP has taken several initiatives like environmental day celebrations, awareness walks for environmental protection, botanical exhibitions, and eco food parties etc. The eco parties specifically demonstrate that how a social gathering can be arranged with minimum waste and use of sustainable items by directly involving students and faculties of IUB.

Responsible Resource Consumption

To realize the climate response beyond making the call for action, a number of action plans are devised by GCP. Such as in the first stage of the project, reduction of the leakages and wastes at university are addressed. At the next stage of the project, the water and energy matters at the department level are intended to be installed so that energy, water, and paper audits can be conducted separately for each department.

To curtain the fuel use by IUB and to address the local air quality issue of Bahawalpur city a series of cycling events has been started since 24/11/2021.

For the effective monitoring of the use of environmental resources by every department of the university Environment Management Units (EMU) at the faculty, the level is being constructed.

Integrated Environmental Management

To comprehensively address the issues of environmental management and wasteful consumption, the Integrated Environmental Management (IEM) approach is the need of time. This is a holistic approach to management that aims to integrate environmental management activities through stakeholder committees and representatives. It has emerged as an efficient and impactful means to address complex issues of environmental management such as water and waste management.

Therefore, GCP, IUB has planned and started implementation of the IEM approach at the campus and hostels. In the first phase it is aimed to develop sustainable strategies to curtail environmental damage by restricting plastic usage and limiting waste production and electricity and water usage at the varsity hostels. It includes a complete legal ban on plastic usage on the hostel premises, serving food in eco-friendly and hygienic manner, and awareness campaigns through posters and videos within the hostels.

Inter-universities Consortium on Climate Change

To combat the increasing climate catastrophes, GCP regularly brings forward the practical response by IUB. In this pursuit IUB organized a two-day inter-universities consortium on “Climate Change, Sustainability, and Conservation” on March 21-22, 2022. VC IUB also signed MOU with more than sixteen universities to create a network of association between academia and national institutions for working together on the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Pakistan. IUB has also launches an official web portal to facilitate the cause by sharing knowledge and information.

The participating institutes have collectively agreed to work with IUB in collaboration for research, exhaustive scientific discussion, and exchange of teaching resources and students. It is also intended to develop a joint Climate Change Fund to support the necessary research. In the upcoming phase inter-universities consortium will extend its linkages to local communities with the public-private partnership as well to the international level.