The American University in Cairo (AUC) has pledged to hit zero emissions by 2050 and spend an average of $13.7 million in funding for research per year on sustainability.
Green projects at the AUC are separated into two main endeavours: the Climate Change Initiative and the Centre for Applied Research on the Environment and Sustainability (CARES) undertaken by different administrative offices with student representation in each.
The centre is mainly concerned with producing knowledge that could have real-life implications not only for the university, but also for the wider community. The Climate Change Initiative seeks to impact the university campus to inspire real change on a greater level.
“Our aim is to mobilise real changes in the community by producing more generations who understand and are aware of the challenges lying ahead and who can develop real holistic solutions for them,” said Hani Sweilam, Egypt’s minister of irrigation and the founding director of CARES whose work covers education, community engagement, and research.
Community engagement is what supplies research topics for the AUC Centre, since most of the research is focused on real-life applications, explained Fahad Kimera, senior agricultural manager and a researcher at CARES.
“We go into communities, talk to the people, assess, evaluate, and get to know what are the challenges that communities are facing,” Kimera said. One of the main issues that CARES focuses on is agricultural research, especially regarding freshwater availability and its applications.
Water, energy, and food are at the centre of research efforts, according to Kimera. The centre’s one-storey building is powered by solar panels in an attempt to reduce the utilisation of fossil fuels on campus. It also has two desalination plants utilising different technologies.
For food security, the centre has a recirculating aquaculture system, where fish are grown in a small space using a minimal amount of water, thereby leaving a very small footprint. Wastewater from the fish is then used to grow crops.
The Climate Change Initiative rests on five priority actions: water, energy transition, green building and sustainable urban communities, green financing, and global health, Adham Ramadan, associate provost for research and dean of graduate studies at the AUC and a member of the initiative task force, told Al-Ahram Weekly.
It represents a framework for research, teaching, outreach, and student activities, in addition to sustainable operations, he said.
Two major reports as well as a guide have been produced by the initiative, namely the Sustainability Report for 2022, the Carbon Footprint Report for 2022, and the Green Guide.
AUC’s Sustainability Report is the second iteration of this publication, created by the university’s Office of Sustainability to demonstrate its dedication to the environmental, social, and economic facets of sustainability throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Carbon Footprint Report is a tool for assessing the environmental impact of organisations or activities by measuring the amount of greenhouse gases, the main contributors to global warming, that are released into the atmosphere each year. It is designed to ensure that the University delivers on its zero-emissions commitments by 2050.
The Green Guide is a roadmap on how to deliver the aims of the initiative.
The Climate Change Initiative has pledged to achieve net zero emissions at AUC by 2050, with this having been made last August by Yasmine Mansour, director of the Sustainability Office at the AUC.
“Within a year of joining the Race to Zero Campaign, a plan will be submitted for an intermediary goal for 2030 to reach the final goal by 2050,” she said.
Having been launched last September, the university’s task force aims to use a holistic approach and combine academics from many departments at the AUC as well as students to draw up plans with a timetable to combat climate change on campus.
*A version of this article appears in print in the 10 November, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.
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