Opening of Eco Lounge
Newcastle University Medicine Malaysia (NUMed) officially opened its Eco Lounge on 30th September 2022. This was in line with its efforts to raise awareness about the global phenomenon of climate change and reduce the environmental impact on its beautiful green campus.
The opening of the lounge is timely as climate change and global warming are now major global challenges with serious environmental, economic, and social ramifications. In recent months alone, many parts of the world, including Malaysia, have had to battle natural disasters such as typhoons, hurricanes, and floods.
The programme opened with a Continuous Medical Education (CME) Talk on “Climate crisis, Health and Healthcare” with a tagline, “The Climate Emergency is a Health Emergency!” by Dr. Maria. ”We can’t have healthy people on a sick planet. Healthcare professionals play a critical role as climate champions the world needs to hear,” she said.
The CME aimed amplify key the Climate and Health Transformation Messages like climate solutions are health solutions, the effects of global warming directly influence health outcomes and many more significant to the enhancement of world health as a whole.
“The majority of the environmental efforts has been done on the UK site so far, but we believe that as a branch campus of Newcastle University, we should also be working to reduce our environmental impact and carbon emissions here in Malaysia,” said Prof. Chris Baldwin, CEO and Provost of NUMed.
Chris Baldwin in his speech also praised the good work of the NUMed Environment and Sustainability Campus Committee (ESCC). “I am sure that we will see further impact of the work of the ESCC over the coming year and beyond. All of us, as a community here at NUMed, can really show that we take our responsibility towards the environment very seriously,” he said.
Besides this, NUMed’s MBBS students participate in an annual Planetary Health Report Card, an international initiative aimed at increasing planetary health awareness and accountability among medical schools. NUMed is also one of only two Malaysian universities to have joined the Global Consortium on Climate and Health Education and the British Malaysian Chamber of Commerce Climate Pledge.
NUMed is no stranger to environmental justice. In fact, its parent campus, Newcastle University, UK, is a world leader in the area environmental justice ranking first in the UK and eighth in the world by the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings 2022, which assesses more than 1,400 universities worldwide, in line with the aspirations of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Newcastle University’s concern for climate change and the environment began long ago. In 2019, the Newcastle University Environment and Sustainable Campus Committee (ESCC) released a climate emergency statement that read: “We recognise the urgency of international environmental issues including climate change and biodiversity loss. Preparing our students with the skills and knowledge to deal with the unprecedented crisis is fundamental to our purpose as a University.”
The ESCC is responsible for establishing and enhancing NUMed's reputation as a sustainable university campus, providing strategic sustainability guidance, and coordinating efforts to improve teaching, research, and operations related environmental sustainability while defining the strategy in relation to environment and sustainability issues, with the goal of continuous improvement, encouraging sustainable behaviours and cultural change to achieve sustainability goals and improve environmental performance.
In addition, two years later, the University announced that its goal to decarbonise its operations in order to achieve net zero carbon dioxide emissions was brought forward by a decade to 2030.