Green Programs Annual Report on Sustainability Week 2020
UQ’s 8th annual Sustainability Week was very different in 2020. With on-campus events restricted, due to COVID-19 and subsequent social distancing, the creative delivery of events and intiatives became the norm.
Almost 80% of the week’s 44 events were held online. Being online, there were a variety of platforms and formats to interact with. The UQ Sustainability website hosted articles on setting up a home garden, being more energy conscious, having a sustainable self-care routine, and other topics that readers could accomplish safely from home.
On campus film screenings were replaced with online screenings of environmental documentaries through the UQ Library’s Kanopy platform ( and EduTV subscription. Chasing Ice, 2040, and River Blue were among the films promoted.
Online workshops were a popular format, affording those who could not make the in-person workshops an opportunity to learn about sustainable practices. The most popular workshop was the Native Bee Workshop with Dr Tobias Smith, which explored native bees in Australia and how you can attract them to your garden. The Bike Maintenance Workshop and Zero Waste Workshop with Toby Hutcheon provided an online space to learn essential, sustainable skills.
Apart from workshops, online content was created to educate the community on various UQ sustainability initiatives. These included virtual tours such as the Tesla Tour with Dr Jake Whitehead, the Warwick Solar Farm Tour with Andrew Wilson, the St Lucia Solar Rooftop Tour, and Caring for Injured Wildlife with Shane Biddle.
The tours were aimed at taking viewers on a virtual look-around and providing a thorough insight into the initiative. The Caring for Injured Wildlife feature with Shane Biddle video was an educational interview, where viewers learned what to do if they found injured wildlife on campus. The Tesla Tour was accompanied by a Q&A livestreamed on Facebook. A large part of the engagement throughout the week happened through videos, both pre-filmed tours and livestreams. These videos allowed for virtual versions of the usual in-person Sustainability Week activities while reaching so many new people!
The Green Ambassador Program, which officially started in 2020, kicked off Sustainability Week with Monday’s Environmental Forum. A collaboration between GAP and the UQU Environment Collective, the inaugural Forum focused on students and staff learning about UQ’s sustainability operations, such as in waste, water, biodiversity, energy and monitoring. A separate networking event allowed students to brainstorm potential initiatives to implement on UQ campus.
The second event run by GAP was Friday’s SDG Pictionary event. This relaxing (and hilarious) event involved drawing pictures to represent different UN Sustainable Development Goals and their associated words. A few inevitable drawing blunders made everyone chuckle.
There was a limited number of in-person events, following a COVID-Safe plan. As most of the community’s working and studying life had been online for the past five months, students and staff loved attending these events. Held across St Lucia, Gatton and Herston campuses, the Meat-free Monday mini market was a popular attraction, providing a food truck, iSustainability story wall and CoralWatch stall. The UQ Preloved clothes stall, beeswax wrap and clothes mending workshops were also popular, offering a creative outlet and chance to reuse, recycle and repair.
During the week, UQ Life created a wonderful presence on campus at Campbell Place hub, fostering a tangible sense of community. The Recycling Hub, also in Campbell Place, hosted four different waste streams, notably including e-waste, organics, and container refund bins. In the spirit of ‘Trash-Free Tuesday’, there was also popular mending workshop, in which attendees learnt basic hand sewing techniques to extend the life of their clothes.
While 80% of the week’s activities were online, this interestingly increased outreach by over 50% from 2019. More than 38,000 people viewed the five online movie events alone, with Vanishing of the Bees being the most popular.
The student-staff team covered the week’s events through planned promotion and capturing footage at in-person events. Each day started with a post outlining the day’s theme (e.g. Meat-Free Monday) and the events in store. Instagram stories captured in-person events, as if the viewer was there. These Instagram story takeovers also featured on UQ Life and UQ’s Instagram channels. The coverage and exposure were extremely beneficial for extending the reach of the online content.
On the whole, Sustainability Week 2020 was a great success, especially when navigating an action-packed week during a global pandemic. “We are grateful for the team’s continuous hard work, and the encouragement and support from UQ Life, UQ Union, UQ Faculties, and the broader UQ community, in creating a meaningful and educational week dedicated to promoting and celebrating sustainability”, said Cassidy, part of the student-staff social media team. “Every week should be sustainability week!”