NUS Earth Hour 2011

In 2010, NUS Earth Hour saw the launch of the NUS Students' Sustainability Charter signed by 15 NUSSU constituent club presidents, inking their commitment to the cause of a more sustainable campus. Staff and students also formed a large iconic tree-shape mosaic - composed of lily origami made from recycled paper - at the centre of NUS' Sports and Recreation Centre which signified its vision of "Campus in a Tropical Rainforest" (CiTR), a programme aimed at developing a long-term roadmap for the greening of the NUS Kent Ridge campus.

This year, in line with the "NUS Fights Climate Change - NOW or Never" campaign, which aims to convey the urgency of taking action to mitigate climate change, NUS Earth Hour focused on empowering individuals and student groups to take action with the launch of the new NUS Sustainability Fund, which provides seed funding for ground-up green projects.

The NUS Sustainability Fund is a grant programme set up to encourage NUS students and staff to take ownership of our campus sustainability and create opportunities for the community to make a difference in NUS' environmental efforts. As Vice Chairperson (Projects) of NUSSU SAVE, I was personally involved in the discussion of the fund details and found it rewarding that after all the hard work, the fund was finally launched to enable groups interested in embarking on their own environmental projects to make a greater impact. I look forward to the day where SAVE will not just be the main group in NUS organising green initiatives, but the coordinating and advisory body for many ground-up green projects on campus. Hopefully, the NUS Sustainability Fund will be the catalyst to encourage and empower individuals interested in the environmental cause to act on their interest.

Besides the usual turning off of all non-essential lights around campus during Earth Hour, which falls on 26 March this year, we also organised an inter-student-groups game whereby the competition's participation fee will be donated to the NUS Tree Fund for planting trees on campus. The event kicked off with a blast, with four Halls of Residences (Raffles, Sheares, Eusoff, Temasek) participating, two student clubs (from the Special Programme in Science and School of Design and Environment respectively). At the end of the game, a colourful 60+ lighted display was formed, symbolising the commitment to go beyond the 60 minutes lights-off effort to achieve greater and more sustained impact.