A Story of Sustainability Change Agents
Sustainability change agents are one piece in the development of a culture of sustainability. Recognizing the efforts and impacts of those individuals reinforces that anyone within the organization has the capacity to positively impact our values and contribution to the local and global community. At the International School of Beijing (ISB), we publicly committed to the recognization of individuals providing significant contributions to ISB’s sustainability accomplishments.
To achieve this aim we established the Darren Smyth Sustainability Change Agent award in 2019 and recognize one or more individuals in our biweekly internal all-staff communication. Since that time, we’ve seen staff at all levels of the school transform into change agents furthering our positive impact on people and the planet. Below we recognize those change agents at ISB!
Robin M - Schools use a lot of paper, whether it be taking notes, homework, tests, or lesson planning. While often a necessary aspect of teaching and learning, at times there are opportunities to go paper free. Robin has been hard at work reviewing the HS math standards this fall and instead of using copious amounts of paper she’s elected to use multiple whiteboards as a means to accomplish this task! Watch this fun 2 minute video for more on the impact of paper. Additionally, we hope to lower the impact of the paper we do use with this Sustainability Roadmap 2025 commitment: Develop sustainable purchasing standard for paper, lighting, electronics by 2020, other relevant items by 2022.
Angela M - In China, as in many other locations around the world, fruits are often packaged with protective sleeves to prevent bruising. This protective sleeve is traditionally a single-use plastic material that quickly finds its way into the trash (or rivers and oceans if improperly disposed). With the large volume of Children of Madaifu organic apples purchased last month came with it a lot of single-use plastic sleeves. Angela proactively reached out via a Wechat group that ES Design could accept the sleeves and give them another use! Thanks to creative use of materials, Angela found a reuse option for 1500+ plastic sleeves. While this may seem like a small action, consider the impacts on resource usage, air and water emissions, climate impacts, waste (+ cost) that did not happen from raw material extracting, manufacturing, transporting and disposing of 1500+ units of something else.
Julie L - There is a story and impact behind every product we buy. Where did the materials come from? Did they come from a tree, oil underground, or a recycler? Is the packaging recycled or need to be thrown out? What about where it is made and the working conditions of the people making it? Is the product itself meant to be used for a long time or discarded or can it be recycled / reused? To help us make more positive and purposeful decisions, Julie established the ISB Responsible Consumption & Production Expectations for our own purchasing and in student design. Some of the sustainability expectations include no plastic packaging, closed loop manufacturing, having a positive impact on others, and responsible & environmentally friendly advertising.
Feifei Z - When the ES Art Department needed to order t-shirts, Feifei wondered if the t-shirts could be obtained without all the individual plastic bags and cardboard inserts. Taking the initiative, she reached out the vendor and asked if this was possible. The vendor was more than happy to fulfill this request as it saves them materials and time. This simple action saved the planet from a lot of plastic bags that would be discarded instantly. Take away: If you are ordering clothing – ask the vendor to package them in a single garbage bag!
Karla S - At the beginning of the year Karla observed the amount of waste generated by using paper towels in her ES Art classroom. To reduce our collective impact on the planet, she traded paper towels for cloth towels. The resulting impact is estimated at 29 fewer trees being cut down and reduced air pollution equivalent to 270 cars each year. Did you know that between 1996 and 2015, an area of Canadian boreal forest equal to the size of South Korea was cut down just to supply North America with toilet paper, tissues, and paper towels? More than 90 percent of this logging was done by clearcutting. Want to learn more / how to take steps to reduce your impact: Read the NRDC’s report on tissue.
Simon P - Student activities often come with a lot of swag (e.g. patches, photos, booklets, T-shirts, medals, and more), all of which consume the world’s natural resources and eventually end up in a landfill. Simon has been an advocate within the Asia Pacific Activities Conference for doing away with swag that is of lower value to the students. High School coaches may have noticed that starting last year team photos moved over to digital format and event booklets were only printed for coaches. While these may seem like small steps, the potential for this thinking to ripple out across the conference is immense!
Eileen R - If you’ve walked up and down the high school and middle school stairs regularly over the past few years, you’ve likely noticed a distinct change with the student notice boards. Eileen has been instrumental in providing guidance and training to our high school student leaders to help them become more effective in their roles. A shift towards more purposeful and environmentally sustainable marketing of their clubs and events – demonstrated by the dramatic reduction in paper and glossy flyers – is one impact of those trainings. While we do not have numbers on the amount of paper and ink saved, I believe we can safely say at least one tree was saved from the paper mill.
Facilities Department - Energy efficiency has been top of mind at the Facilities Department since February. Their challenge was to operate a now larger building with less energy. The results speak for themselves – 30% reduction in energy through October this year compared to last year. Financially, this is a cost savings to ISB of over 2M RMB. Better yet, energy use remains down even with the school at full operation, meaning many of the energy savings are permeant. How did Facilities do it? They evaluated every energy using part of the school. Areas where energy did not add value was cut. This means ensuring lights are off when not needed, turning off the supplemental room heating/cooling during the period of school closure, and adjusting temperature setpoints. This last one is my favorite as two students from the Greenkeepers High School club worked tirelessly last year, researching setpoints and ultimately proposing their recommendation to Facilities. That their work was utilized to help ISB rise to the challenge shows how much of a group effort this is from teachers empowering students with the necessary skills, to our students driven by purpose and compassion, to our Facilities staff for getting the ball over the line.
Ann L - ISB is committed to purchasing in an environmental, social, and financially sustainable manner. As part of our Mission/Vision and 40th anniversary refresh of gifts, Ann reviewed the gifts in storage and found over 810 items! Ann took the initiative to have redesigned inserts and cards made such that those items could be reused rather than being turned to waste. Additionally, Ann and the purchasing team were mindful of the impact purchasing goods can have. With that consideration, they found gift pens primarily made out of recycled paper.
Grade 5 Staff - ISB has a target to reduce our waste by 60% per student by 2025. Our new recycling system and fledging compost system will help (yes, we are now composting at a small scale – contact Matthew to involve your class), but the first ‘R’ – Reduce – is our primary strategy to reach this target. Staff from Grade 5 observed the amount of waste created during each holiday party and decided this was an area they could impact. The staff worked with Purchasing to acquired durable plates, cups and silverware eliminating this source of single-use waste!
Mary P - During the spring and summer period of school closure, ISB reduced operational costs by millions of RMB through common energy efficiency measures like turning up the thermostat and turning off lights. Mary recognized the impact these measures can have, and with ISB in a state of limited on-site operation, suggested turning off the hallway lights in the ES and MS. ISB has immediately implemented this measure and will commence a review of lighting operation across the school to identify other areas where lighting is not providing value during our current state.
Chiho S and Sherryl G - In 2019, our Middle School students studied the societal impacts of chocolate grown in Africa (where 70% of cocoa is grown) and identified child labor as a structural issue. The FA students successfully lobbied the school to cease our sourcing of chocolate from suppliers that do not have programs focusing on supporting farmers so their children can be in school instead of working on the farm. As Chiho and Sherryl were identifying chocolate to use for Monday’s Chocolate Mindfulness, they ensured the school kept its commitment to our students as well as providing a better life for children in Africa by purchasing chocolate with certified sustainability programs. UTZ and Cocoa Life are two such certifications you can look out for when purchasing ethical chocolate.