On 3 December, we welcomed representatives from the Singapore Building and Construction Authority (BCA) to Dover to receive Green Mark Platinum Super Low Energy certifications for both our campuses. While we are honoured to be the only international school in Singapore to achieve this award, it is a powerful testimony to the long term vision, commitment and entrepreneurial spirit of our staff and students to our mission of building a sustainable future.
As Heads of Campus, Lizzie Bray and Graham Silverthorne accepted the awards from Dr Ang of BCA, UWCSEA’s Head of Facilities and Operations Aman Singh Chauhan marked the occasion with these inspiring words about the impact this commitment can create for our future:
“Buildings behave in the way we treat them, at UWCSEA we treat our buildings as living things and respect them as we do our community members. This requires an intentional approach and, though it takes a mammoth effort, we think every single action in the direction of sustaining our environment is worth making. We believe that there is education in everything we do and hence we work collaboratively with our student groups who are the source of many inspiring ideas. On our joint learning journey we help them to shape their ideas into reality, an experience which gives them confidence to imagine what is possible to achieve elsewhere. As they are the future leaders, we are certain that they will always keep the environment at the centre of their decision making”.
It was significant that we were meeting on the day the UN put out a call for action on Sustainable Development Goal 13; and as it was announced that this year is shaping up to be the hottest ever, as clear a signal, if any reminder were needed, that we are not taking enough action to combat global warming.
The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic impacts have been uppermost in our minds this year, but we must not neglect the fact we started this year with enormous destruction of bush fires in Australia, and have since seen similar massive destruction from fires in the US. The good news is that we are not yet at the point of no return; there is time to come together to tackle global warming, and that committed partnerships like that we have with the BCA, leading the way for a low energy future, are significant and bring mutual benefit.
To explore the sustainability features on Dover Campus, which has been extensively retrofitted so as to attain the BCA's rigorous green building design and operational standards across the whole site, please take our new online Dover Campus Sustainability Tour.