The Catholic Church has a strong stated environmental position. In 2001 Pope John Paul II called for Catholics to avoid ecological ‘catastrophe’ and emphasised that ‘we must therefore stimulate and sustain the ecological conversion’. In Australia, the Bishops' Commission for Justice and Development (BCJD) has established an agency called Catholic Earthcare Australia with the mission of advising, supporting and assisting the BCJD in responding to Pope John Paul II's call throughout the Catholic Church in Australia and beyond.

Pope Benedict XVI also established his position in relation to humanity and the environment, appealing to ‘Christian communities, international leaders and people of good will throughout the world’ as part of his 2010 World Peace Day Address If You Want to Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation - to understand the need to protect the Earth and the environment, describing the relationship between human beings and the environment as a ‘covenant’ that should mirror the creation of God.

Pope Francis made a call to protect the environment and the world's poor. At his inauguration Pope Francis said, "I would like to ask all those who have positions of responsibility in economic, political and social life, and all men and women of goodwill: Let us be protectors of creation, protectors of God’s plan inscribed in nature, protectors of one another and of the environment”. He went on to call people to respect nature. "In the end, everything has been entrusted to our protection, and all of us are responsible for it," he said. "Be protectors of God's gifts." In 2015, Pope Francis published his encyclical letter, Laudato Si (On Care for Our Common Home), which provides essential guidance to ACU’s practice of sustainability.

Energy and Renewable Electricity at ACU

ACU is Australia’s most energy-efficient university and all the electricity that powers its Australian campuses is generated by solar and wind farms.

Energy efficiency is a cornerstone of ACU’s commitment to sustainability. ACU uses just 0.32 gigajoules of energy per square meter of floorspace. This is the lowest amount of energy per square meter used by any Australian university.

Since 1 July 2021, all Australian campuses have been powered by 100% renewable electricity. This change alone has eliminated about 15,000 tonnes of CO2 from our annual carbon footprint.

We continue to improve energy efficiency through measures such as these:

• high-performance building design and smart controls
• LED lighting and motion sensors
• energy-efficient air-conditioning systems
• building management systems that monitor energy in real time

Your actions matter: help ACU to eliminate energy waste. Turn off lights in empty offices and meeting rooms in your workplace and switch off computer monitors at the end of the day. Leaving lights on in empty rooms forces ACU to pay for a service it doesn’t need, wasting money better spent on learning and research.

Carbon and Climate Action at ACU

ACU aspires to carbon neutrality by 2040. That aspiration requires ACU to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 60% by 2030 and by 95% by 2040, compared with a 2020 baseline. ACU will offset the remaining emissions.

Before ACU embarked on its program of climate action, most of its emissions came from electricity and air travel. The switch to 100% renewable electricity in 2021 and the post-pandemic change in our air travel habit has cut our direct emissions sharply. Today, at least 80% of ACU’s remaining carbon footprint comes from the goods, services and materials we purchase (that is, our supply chain). The table below shows the main categories of ACU’s carbon emissions:

That’s why the next phase of our carbon plan focuses on low-carbon procurement, supplier engagement, and data transparency.

Your actions matter: staff decisions on how we commute to campus, on business travel, on composting our food waste, on printing and on what we procure for the university, directly influence ACU’s emissions profile. Here’s a shortlist of actions that can help ACU manage its carbon emissions:

1. Commute by public transport, riding, walking or ride-share
2. Avoid printing documents; if you must print, print on both sides and only in black and white
3. Compost your food waste in the food waste bins in ACU staff kitchens
4. Turn off lights in empty offices and meeting rooms during the day and especially at the end of the day.
5. Default to online meetings with interstate colleagues but in-person meetings are often essential, so make sure you maximise their value by combining meetings and using public transport and shared rides in Ubers and taxis whenever practicable.
6. Procurement is the key to big and quick cuts to ACU’s emissions, so engage with the Procurement team and with the ACU Sustainability Manager on your procurement projects.

Waste and Recycling at ACU

ACU aims to minimise the amount of waste it sends to landfill and to recycle as much as waste as possible.

Here are the key figures:

• 2019 total waste generation: 680 tonnes
• 2019 recycling rate: 40%
• 2024 total waste generation: 464 tonnes
• 2024 recycling rate: 45%

Day to day, ACU recycles the following types of waste: hard plastic, metal, food, paper, cardboard, electronics, coffee pods and glass containers.

ACU also sets strict benchmarks for recycling on its construction projects, which commonly achieve recycling rates of more than 80%.

Your part matters: every item sorted correctly reduces emissions and costs. Here are the five fundamental rules for recycling:

1. Compost all food waste. This also means scraping your uneaten food from plates and containers into the food waste bins.
2. Recycle hard plastic items such as food containers and milk bottles
3. Recycle all metal cans and containers
4. Recycle office paper, cardboard, newspapers and magazines, but not paper towels, disposable cups and any paper contaminated with food or drink
5. Landfill the rest.

Sustainable Transport at ACU

A major source of ACU’s operations environmental impact is the commuting to and from campus by staff and students, and between campuses, particularly for staff. Air travel aside, the least sustainable transport mode is single-occupant car travel.

Active forms of transport such as cycling and walking, or public transport, or car-sharing, produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants per-person than travelling alone in a car and walking and cycling will increase your physical activity and improve your health.

ACU helps students and staff to choose more sustainable modes of transport by:

• Providing of end-of-trip facilities such as bike lock up points, lockers and showers on campus
• Conducting student and staff commuter surveys to better understand how staff and students choose to travel to University
• Provision of videoconferencing, teleconferencing and virtual meeting capabilities to staff, to provide an alternative to inter-campus travel

To find where on campus you can lock-up your bike, find a locker or take a shower at the end of your active-transport trip, see your Campus’s Student Amenity Map:

• Ballarat
• Blacktown
• Brisbane
• Canberra
• Melbourne
• North Sydney
• Strathfield

Sustainable Buildings and Design at ACU

Sustainability at ACU depends on what we do together — as a university and as individuals.

Every major new ACU building since 2011 has been designed to high sustainability standards, combining efficiency, health and stewardship.

Our certified Green Star projects include:

• 6-Star Green Star Daniel Mannix Building (Melbourne)
• 5-Star Green Star Veritas Building (Canberra)
• 5-Star Green Star St Brigids School of Health Sciences (Ballarat)
• 5-Star Green Star Mother Teresa Building (Melbourne)

Many other buildings at ACU incorporate very high levels of sustainable design without being certified under the Green Star system. These include the John Paul II Building and the Mercy Building at Brisbane Campus, the Mary Glowrey Building at Melbourne Campus, and the Victor Couch Library at North Sydney Campus.

Each building uses advanced air-conditioning, lighting, and water systems to minimise resource consumption, and has carpets, furniture and paint that emit very low or no amounts of volatile organic compounds that can harm our health.

Responsible Investment and Procurement at ACU

At Australian Catholic University, the way we purchase goods and services is an important expression of our Mission, our values, and our commitment to the common good. Every procurement decision—large or small—has environmental, social and economic impacts. Through our Procurement Policy and our Modern Slavery Action Plan, we ensure those impacts contribute to a fairer, safer and more sustainable world.

Our approach to procurement is grounded in five principles: value, probity, risk management, responsible sourcing, and high-quality supplier performance. These principles ensure that ACU purchases deliver long-term value to the University and to the communities we serve.

As a member of Supply Nation and the Australian Catholic Anti-Slavery Network, ACU actively supports Indigenous businesses and works to eliminate modern slavery risks in our supply chain. We also participate in the University Procurement Hub and the University Procurement Analytics Service, enabling sector-wide collaboration and better visibility of supplier practices.

Sustainable procurement at ACU means choosing products and services that are ethically sourced, environmentally responsible, socially just, and fit for purpose. It means partnering with suppliers who respect human dignity and uphold strong labour, environmental and governance standards. It also means complying with our probity and tendering requirements so that all decisions are transparent and fair.

Your actions matter: you can contribute by following ACU’s procurement processes, using approved suppliers and panels, considering the social and environmental impact of your purchase, and consulting with The ACU Finance procurement team and the ACU Sustainability Manager before engaging any new supplier.

Sustainability Reporting

ACU produces an annual sustainability report that details the ways that ACU practices sustainability in its operations, in its learning and teaching, and in its research.

The annual sustainability reports link ACU’s sustainability actions and commitments to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations and to the principles of integral ecology articulated in Pope Francis’s encyclical, Laudato Si (On Caring for Our Common Home).

The reports serve not only as a record of ACU’s ongoing commitment to sustainability but also as a body of evidence to support ACU’s participation in the Times Higher Education Impact Ranking and the QS Sustainability Survey.

Learn more: read ACU’s annual sustainability reports located at https://www.acu.edu.au/about-acu/sustainability-at-acu