" Working at OES has opened up my mind to the efforts that some people put in saving the Environment. I have learnt a great deal of Environmental facts and small actions that I can adopt to reduce my carbon Footprint. Many of my questions and misconceptions of the Environment have been cleared up also by the professional people in the Office. Researching about Green Technology has opened my eyes to the new direction that businesses in the world are moving towards. Even though what I will read in my further studies has little to do with the Environment, I am glad I have come out a more environmentally friendly person. "

" I’m a graduate student form the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. My key interest scientifically as personally is the relation between humans and climate/environment. To come to Singapore and the NUS have been a great opportunity and experience. It has been most interesting to work on sustainability from a different context than the one I know from Denmark.

I have already worked a lot with the topics that relate to adaptation to global climate change, currently I’m writing my master thesis on adaptation to climate change among rural people in south Bangladesh. However, I feel very lucky to get the option to work on progress and problem solving on the “other side” of responding to global climate change – mitigation. Reducing green house gas emission is essential for a global sustainable future. And NUS have a great potential to play a lead role in this development.

Working for sustainability is in my eyes the most interesting, challenging and most needed question at present time. I the IARU program is relevant in this progress and I have been happy to contribute to this effort.

I have learned so many new things about sustainable buildings techniques and management, which indeed matters if NUS wants to meet its own targets and become a world leader in sustainability. I have worked on a guidebook for sustainable buildings at NUS. I have assessed how the existing buildings can be more energy efficient and how new buildings should be built in the most sustainable way.

The project was very interesting and contents options to be creative, innovative and productive as well as applying sound knowledge on climate and human interflow. In Denmark I am as well engaged in creating green behaviour among students and I think my learning experience form NUS will be a great contribution to this work. I have the ambition to take some of these initiatives and new ideas about energy saving and sustainability back to the University of Copenhagen, as well as to apply them in a broader Danish context – especially towards the COP15 in December.

I have been very happy to get this opportunity to learn and learn from NUS and OES. I believe that to solve the challengers related to global climate change, global experience and cooperation is most needed and the internship at OES at the National University for Singapore is a little contribution on this path for a sustainable global future. "

" I came to NUS from Oxford University in September 2009 as an IARU Sustainability Fellow. Over the course of the six weeks I have worked on a diverse range of projects, including auditing buildings to assess how to optimise air-con settings, writing talks, logging data on airflow characteristics in labs, and contributing to OES’ Sustainable Buildings Guide – a comprehensive guide on how to sustainably manage new and existing buildings.

From a learning perspective, the internship has been an invaluable experience. I have been given a taste of just how complex a task reducing NUS’ environmental impact is. Working in the office has allowed me to get a sense of what the big challenges are in NUS’ situation, and the best way to approach them; I intend to apply this knowledge on my return to the UK. Equally important, the internship has strengthened my resolve to pursue a career in helping to address environmental problems. Even over just six weeks I felt that, however small my contribution, I was able to contribute to some of the valuable work that OES does.

Finally I have thoroughly enjoyed myself in Singapore. The combination of a unique and fun office environment and the excitement of the city has made for a fantastic trip. I hope to retain the contacts and friends I made here, and to bring back some of the insights gained. The IARU Sustainability Internship is a very good program. It does important work in developing the participating students, and I think the experience of undertaking environmental work in places very different from where we are from allows us to develop a broader sense of the climate change problem which is essential if we are to effectively tackle it. "

" I am an Environmental Engineering student in NUS and interned at OES during the June holidays in 2009, working on a project about the feasibility of green transport in campus. Throughout the internship, I cycled around campus to gather data by taking pictures, measuring path widths and estimating gradients.

While the feasibility is still being explored, it is great fun working in OES with like-minded and environmentally conscious colleagues. Their passion in promoting environmental sustainability shows in the multitude of projects that OES is heading. There were also opportunities to work with international students from the IARU program and interns from other faculties. These interactions were a chance of meeting new people who are equally keen in playing a part in the green movement today.

Overall, I thank everyone in OES for such a fruitful and wonderful experience. "