Sustainable Campus Forum

SCF aims to engage faculty, staff, and students in the sustainable campus movement by creating an inclusive forum where all university constituents can voice concerns and share ideas for a more sustainable campus. Acting as a bridge between the university’s decision-makers and its community, the forum focuses on promoting campus sustainability through innovative ideas and approaches, fostering diverse perspectives on sustainability, empowering student participation in initiatives and decision-making, and raising awareness of global challenges to inspire campus action.

A key challenge KASA identified is the imbalance between technical and psychological approaches to addressing sustainability within educational institutions. Many universities, for instance, focus on improving their rankings in sustainability without deeply considering what campus sustainability truly means. This often results in sustainability discussions being narrowly focused on technical issues, such as reducing campus greenhouse gas emissions. In contrast, the psychological/movement approach can shift the focus from infrastructure and technology to our thinking and behavior. Investing in sustainability-focused education, for example, can lay the groundwork for adopting a sustainable mindset, which in turn fosters sustainable habits such as conserving energy, reducing food waste and single-use plastics, planting trees, and creating gardens.

The first forum, held online in July as a pilot project, attracted around 30 faculty, staff, and students who discussed current campus sustainability problems and potential solutions. Both infrastructure-related and movement-related issues were addressed. Since then, KASA has collaborated with the Office of Sophia Sustainability Promotion to organize subsequent forums in both English and Japanese, engaging a diverse range of university stakeholders. The most recent forum, held in June 2023, explored the theme “Can Universities Become Farms?” with guest panelists Jun Kuniyoshi and Sora Kobayashi. Following this, Sophia Style Magazine interviewed the panelists along with KASA member Mana Short to delve deeper into campus sustainability.