The University of Otago has won an Australasian sustainability award for a green initiative aimed at shrinking its carbon footprint by a third.
It won the sustainable campus section of the Green Gown Awards Australasia in Adelaide for working with its main energy supplier, Pioneer Energy, to stop firing its boiler with coal and start using local woodchips.
The process is being gradually implemented and will be fully in place by 2020. University chief operating officer Stephen Willis — who travelled to Adelaide to receive the award — said winning was ‘‘incredibly humbling’’, and showed Otago was on the right track. The awards aim to inspire, promote and support change towards best practice sustainability in the operations, curriculum and research of the tertiary education sector.
Pioneer provides heat and steam to 40% of the Dunedin campus area, comprised of 29 buildings, including five halls of residence.
Pioneer Energy chief operating officer Jonathan West said the university bore the cost of the switch, though Pioneer did make some capital adjustments to its equipment. Bioenergy Association of New Zealand executive officer Brian Cox said in general Otago was ‘‘well positioned’’ to make the change.
"You need to make sure that the supply’s going to be there."
The university’s system was a"showcase", he said.
Pioneer Energy had four boilers on its Dunedin site in total, supplying the university and the hospital.
The initiative has already seen a drop of 20% in the university’s largest emission source in only five months.