A Low Carbon Campus in My Alma Mater – Fantasy vs Reality 

With the rapid development of global economy, climate change has become the major, overriding environmental issue which is one of the greatest challenges facing by the international environmental regulators. The main contributor to climate change issue is due to the increasing number of greenhouse gases (GHGs) emission which causes large amounts of carbon dioxide to be exhausted in the atmosphere (UNEP, 1995). The generation of carbon dioxide is becoming more and more serious global problem. Generation of electricity, transportation, industrial and residential are the main sectors identified to contribute to the emission of carbon dioxide in Malaysia. It was projected that without any mitigation measures being taken up by the country, 285.73 million tons of carbon dioxide will be released in 2020, which is an increase of 68.86% compared to the amount of carbon dioxide emitted in year 2000 (Sharliza et al., 2010).

Nonetheless, Malaysia is playing an active role in reducing the emissions of carbon dioxide through the national mitigation and inter-governmental mechanisms such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a non-binding agreement aimed to reduce atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gasses (GHGs). There are several policy and efforts processing by government, such as UNFCCC was ratified on the 13^th July 1994 formulation of a National Policy on Climate Change in 2009 and implementation of Low Carbon Cities Framework in selected locations since 2011. The Low Carbon Campus (LCC) project was initiated by the Ministry of Energy, Green Technology and Water (KeTTHA) which aimed on selected townships to lower their emissions level and concurrently to achieve the target of 40% carbon emission intensity reduction per gross domestic product per capita by the year of 2020.

My alma mater, the University of Malaya (UM) was chosen as the ideal location to carry out the Low Carbon Campus (LCC) project. My university is situated on a 309 hectare campus in the southwest of Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. It was established on April 1949 in Singapore with the merger of the King Edward VII College of Medicine which initially founded in 1905 and Raffles College. The growth of the university was very rapid during the first decade of its establishment and this resulted in the setting up of two autonomous divisions in 1959 which one located in Singapore and the other in Kuala Lumpur. In 1960, the government of the two territories indicated their desire to change the status of the divisions into a national university. The legislation was passed in 1961 and the University of Malaya was officially established on 1^st January 1962.

And subsequently, University of Malaya (UM) also developed dramatically in terms of the building constructions ever since 1949 till present. However, the university also faced many problems including the expansion of campus, increase population of staff and students as well as decrease of green area. This has indirectly led to the increasing demand for buildings and resources resulting high amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions which aggravate the burden of global warming. As University of Malaya (UM) is still developing, it is necessary to practice low carbon campus project in the campus itself.

As far as I am concern, the University of Malaya (UM) does not have an environmental policy or environmental management system. Hence, there is no environmental driven strategy taken by the university to transform University of Malaya (UM) into an environmental friendly and low carbon campus. However, the university has potential to develop several changes especially in terms of infrastructure provision in order to steer the mission of achieving a low carbon campus.

(A) Land preservation and pedestrian walkway

In terms of land and building preservation, my university takes charge in preserving historical buildings and green land areas on the campus. There are few locations in the university which are categorized as restricted and undisturbed area from any kind of development. Those areas includes the Zone A which is the only green area known as Rimba Ilmu (Forest of Knowledge) Botanical Garden that holds the home for herbarium (a reference library for reserved plants specimens), arboretum (living collection of trees) and bambusetum (living collections of bamboos). The botanical garden also consists of Conservatory of Rare Plants and Orchids as well as many other collections including medicinal plants, palms, citrus and citroid collections. Besides that, the green area around the campus? Varsity Lake also being categorized as untouched land and to be serve as recreational park for the community of the university. The lake plays a vital role in maintaining the temperature on campus as well as serves as the water basins during raining season thus protecting university from get flooding.

Besides that, there are also three buildings in University of Malaya (UM) that have been gazetted under the Department of Heritage since 2009. These buildings include Tunku Chancellor Hall (DTC), Experimental Theatre and the old Chancellery building. No changes shall be done on these buildings before getting the approval from the Department of Heritage despite that it is the university?s buildings. By having more preserve area, there will be higher number of green plants to carry out biological processes and continuously converting excessive carbon dioxide into oxygen in the air.

Despite of that, the placement of undergraduate students in the residential colleges can be reshuffle by placing the students based own their faculties studies. By having such academic demographic distribution, the students would just easily able to walk to their faculties instead of waiting and riding for shuttle buses. Hence, the reduction of carbon footprints will be massive and subsequently contribute to our low carbon campus goals.

Nonetheless, cycling route would be another ideal plan in order to minimize the car usage around the campus. It is impossible to provide cycling route for all the roads system on campus due to the limitation of space in the university but having the concept of being a pedestrian-friendly campus is feasible. As pedestrian walkway is smaller than the cycling track, thus it can easily be constructed throughout the campus. In order to cultivate the pedestrian friendly concept, appropriate awning should be placed along the pedestrian walkways in all colleges, faculties, libraries, examination hall and administration offices.

(B) Transportation

The average numbers of vehicles pass by the university entrance gates during peak hours (between 0730 to 0900 and 1700 to 1830) is estimated to be exceeding 1000 cars every hour. Besides that, the location the university which is situated in the heart of Klang Valley and among the senior land area being developed therefore the campus have also had been the access way between Petaling Jaya as well as Kuala Lumpur areas. In addition to the large number of road users in the university, the continuous increase number of students which brought their own vehicles into the campus has indirectly contributed to the high emission of carbon concentration into the atmosphere.

Apart from the registered students? vehicles, the University of Malaya (UM) shuttle buses also work to provide services for students to travel in and outside the campus. All these busses are used for students? activities and each bus come with different types of engines, diesel engines and with the used natural gas vehicle (NGV) engines. For diesel engine, diesel is used as the fuel which involves internal combustion. It has the highest thermal efficiency of any regular internal or external combustion due to its very compression ratio. Generally, diesel engine will produce carbon black during the combustion process. The carbon black particularly visible then it colours the exhaust in black. And conversely, NGV engine buses used natural gas as the fuel. And thankfully, all buses in the campus used NGV engines.

NGV engines have more benefit as compared to the diesel engines. The natural gas is known as the mixture of hydrocarbons found in the ground independently or together with crude oil and it is believe could help to improve air quality in the transportation. Its composition may vary but theoretically the main component is methane. Natural gas is the cleanest burning fossil fuel as compared to other types of fuels. According to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), NGV engines have more benefit towards the environment compared to diesel engine as the NGV engine only produce half of the particulate matter compared to diesel vehicle. By using NGV, it can significantly reduce the overall carbon monoxide emission up to 75%. It also can reduce nitrogen oxide and volatile organic hydrocarbon emissions by 50%. NGV engine potentially reduce carbon dioxide emissions in about 25%. Moreover, NGV engine also drastically reduce toxic and carcinogenic pollutants as compared to the conventional use of fossil fuels. And most importantly, the use of NGV engine helps to improve air quality and reduce emission of toxic contaminants into the atmosphere as well. The University of Malaya has taken first initiative step to reduce carbon emission by using NGV engine buses. Even though the amount of carbon reduction may be small, it has set as a good platform for the university to invest more NGV engines to the other UM shuttle buses in the future in order to achieve a low carbon campus in the university.

And consequently, there are many steps that can be taken to reduce the carbon emission in terms of transportation aspect on the campus. For instance, the first step that can be taken is to inform all bus drivers to switch off bus engines while waiting for the students in a long period of time and/or the buses are in stationary mode. As we know, if a vehicle engine is off when it stops, it will reduce both carbon emission and noise pollution. In fact, this method also will help to save the cost of the bus fuels.

Secondly, changing the size of bus during non-peak hours would be another alternative way to reduce carbon emission. Usually, the peak hours will start from between 0730 and 0900 in the morning, as well as 1700 and 1830 in the evening. The size of bus vehicles also can influence the carbon emission which usually the bigger size will emit more compared to smaller size. Hence, big shuttle bus would only be required during the peak hours while smaller shuttle bus can be operating during the both peak and non-peak hours.

Other alternative way that we can use to reduce carbon emission is by building bicycle track on the campus. This will indirectly promote student to cycle instead of driving car to attend classes. If each and every one of us who willing to cycle, it would significantly reduce the total level of carbon emission in the university.

(C)  Eco-design of buildings

The modification and implementation of eco-design buildings are essential as the amount of energy consumed and carbon emission can be reduced. There are many different types of eco-design features can be applied on buildings but few of the highly recommended features that can easily implemented on the university?s campus include:   

The living walls or better known as green walls is a pre-vegetated or fabric panels containing plastic containers or geotextiles equipped with irrigation systems and vegetation that are attached to the wall of a building or any supporting structure. Since the university is located in the midst of a busy city, living walls are suitable to reduce local wind speeds, traffic noise and extremes localized temperature. Living walls could aid in improving air quality by reducing dust and particulates. It does not only beautify the landscape but it help to reduce the amount of heat lost from a home solar panel. Other than that, it can be used as a component of a larger photovoltaic system to generate and supply additional electricity in the university.

The application of natural ventilation can be necessary too. Natural ventilation is the process of supplying and removing air through an indoor space without using mechanical systems therefore avoiding the usage of air-conditioner thus reducing energy consumption.. Besides that, roof-skylight can be useful as well. It may open to provide ventilation in rooms that may not be well ventilated other than to use natural light from the sun which would help in decreasing the overall energy costs.

Furthermore, the overall energy consumption in the university can be reduced by applying energy-saving appliances. Up to present, T5 lights have been installed instead of fluorescent lights in certain parts of the campus. Although the installation of energy-saving appliances may be primarily expensive but it allows long term saving of cost and energy. It is understood that the university is one of the biggest clients of the national electricity supplier Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) with about RM15 million annual payment of energy consumption. Hence, the use energy-saving bulbs can reduce partial of the university?s energy consumption. Other than energy-saving light bulbs, the university also has centralized the minimum air-conditioner temperature to be 24? to 25? throughout the entire campus. In addition, sensormatic lights switchers can be apply in the washrooms as it will only works when anyone walks in.

Other than that, the university also may build a little garden on top of a building (roof gardening) by planting more trees for a better cooling system. It is definitely a good location to start up as a beautiful landscape for the students to enjoy the urban scenery while studying. Moreover, the eco-design ideas could be achieved by purchasing and using ?green? construction materials and goods. All construction material must have certified eco-labels to ensure the materials used are environmental friendly and do not posed any environmental impacts to the surroundings.

Nevertheless, the formulation of Green Building Index (GBI) would act as environmental standard guidelines to set out green rating tools in the university. GBI defined green buildings to be those buildings which reduce pollution, consuming energy, water and other resources efficiently other than to protect occupant health and improving employee productivity. And at such, the implementation of GBI in terms of construction buildings on the campus would indirectly help the university in the mission to achieve low carbon campus.

In short, University of Malaya (UM) has much potential to move towards a low carbon campus in terms of infrastructure provision even though it has yet to have any environmental driven policy. By adopting the changes of land preservation, pedestrian walkway, restructure the pre-existing transportation system as well as implementation of eco-design on buildings in the university will definitely speed up the goal to achieve a low carbon campus in the future.

References:

RIVM/UNEP. (1995). Scanning the global environment: A framework and methodology for UNEP's reporting functions. UNEP Environment Assessment Technical Report 95-01. Nairobi, Kenya.

Sharliza, M.S., Zainura, Z.N., Haslenda, H., Zaini, U. & Juhaizah, T. (2010). Project of CO₂ emissions in Malaysia. Wiley Online Library. 

Photo credit: www.greentechmalaysia.my