Deakin’s Sustainability Commitments
Sustainability is embedded within Deakin as one of our values; we care about our shared future and integrating economic, environmental and social dimensions of sustainability in all that we do.
Deakin’s Sustainability Commitments 2020–2030 outline our sustainability plan and key milestones over the next decade. These commitments are aligned to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and their achievement will result in sustainability benefits on campus, within our communities and at a global level.
Download our Sustainability Commitments: 2020–2030 (PDF, 7.7MB)
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
Deakin University is proud to be a signatory to the university commitment to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Universities play a vital role in achieving a sustainable future by recognising:
- the enormous social, economic and environmental challenges facing the world
- that future development must take place in a way that is socially, economically and environmentally sustainable
- that the SDGs establish an agenda for the achievement of sustainable development by 2030.
Among a variety of initiatives, Deakin supports the targets and objectives of the SDGs by:
- supporting and promoting the principles of the Sustainable Development Goals
- undertaking research that provides solutions to sustainable development challenges
- providing educational opportunity for students to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development
- ensuring our campuses and major programs are environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive.
Whether it's sustaining the diversity of life on Earth, the viability of our work, or enjoyment of our environment, sustainability is central to maintaining our quality of life without compromising the needs of future generations.
Professor Iain Martin
Vice-Chancellor
Climate Ready Campus
Climate change is already greatly affecting our urban and natural ecosystems and poses one of the biggest sustainability challenges of our time. Deakin’s Climate Ready Campus is our vision for the Geelong Waurn Ponds Campus. Through an integrated systems approach we will demonstrate a range of complementary and impactful actions that mitigate Deakin’s impacts on climate change, adapt to the impacts of climate change, apply integrated water management solutions and significantly enhance the biodiversity values of the campus.
The implementation of these integrated actions will:
- provide unique opportunities to demonstrate sustainable development
- enable mutually beneficial partnerships to tackle the global challenges of climate change
- use the campus as a living laboratory, enabling research to test and develop climate-ready initiatives
- establish strategies that can be replicated at other campuses and within the broader community.
Sustainability at Deakin
Deakin is committed to becoming more sustainable. Learn about our contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals through our operations, teaching and research.
Creating a Climate Ready Campus
Learn more about Deakin’s Climate Ready Campus, an integrated systems approach designed to mitigate our environmental impact and respond to climate hazards.
Carbon Neutral by 2025
Driven by Deakin’s sustainability value, CN2025 is our program to become carbon neutral by 2025. We are also committed to becoming carbon negative by 2030.
With a focus on reducing emissions at their source, the CN2025 program demonstrates Deakin’s leadership in climate change action and enabling a sustainable world.
Projects within CN2025 aim to combat emissions in four ways:
- Avoid energy required by planning for sustainable development.
- Reduce energy consumption by implementing energy efficiency and optimisation projects.
- Replace energy sources through electrifying gas infrastructure and switching all electricity to 100% renewable sources.
- Offset residual emissions by purchasing carbon offsets for flights, fleet and other unavoidable emissions.
Energy, emissions and sustainable buildings
We track our carbon emissions and energy use to develop sustainable practices and buildings on our campuses.
Learn about our energy, emissions and sustainable buildings
Water, waste and recycling
We encourage staff and students to avoid, reduce, re-use and recycle wherever we can. We also use water economically and harvest rainwater to use across our operations.
Biodiversity
We aim to minimise disruption to the natural ecosystems of each of our campuses by setting biodiversity principles across our building standards and campus experiences.
Transport
We provide accessible, sustainable transport options to, from and between campuses – helping to reduce pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and traffic congestion.
Deakin Sustainability reports
We’re proud of our sustainability record and the changes we’ve made across our campuses to become more sustainable.
2021 Sustainability Report
In 2021, we made considerable progress towards our energy and emissions, integrated water management and biodiversity commitments, as well as our vision to establish a Climate Ready Campus at Waurn Ponds.
Past reports
2020 Sustainability Report (Video, 9:57)
2019 Sustainability Report (Video, 6:05)
2019 Sustainability Progress Report – Data Snapshot (PDF, 934KB)
2018 Sustainability Report (Video, 11:02)
2018 Sustainability Report – Data Snapshot (PDF, 1.2MB)
2017 Sustainability Report and Outlook (PDF, 6.8MB)
2016 Sustainability Progress Report (PDF, 2.4MB)
2015 Sustainability Report (PDF, 3.8MB)
Sustainable procurement
We recognise that the goods and services we purchase, as well as how we procure them, has an impact on sustainability.
That's why we:
- support suppliers who are socially responsible and who adopt ethical practices
- consider the environmental impact of our suppliers and contractors, as well as the life cycle of the goods they supply
- use Fairtrade (or equivalent), and ethically sourced/produced goods and services
- encourage local suppliers to bid for our business
- comply with all Australian sustainability-related regulations and legislation, and ensure our suppliers do the same
- train appropriate staff on valuing sustainability within our procurement process.
Get involved
Find a sustainability course to study, register for one of our events and find out more about our life sciences and environment research.