6 Sep 2024

Green Week 2024

WANBO’s Green Week took place this week, with the theme “Never Refuse to Reuse”. Read more below on how you can be very demure, very mindful of your environmental impact going forward!

The TASS Charter

On the 11th of January this year, Mr. Loggie signed a charter on behalf of our school belonging to The Alliance for Sustainable Schools (TASS), a non-profit organisation aiming to forge connections with schools all over Asia and the Middle East and address institution-wide sustainability. While the charter comprises many different goals, there are 4 in particular that WANBO is setting out to address this year:

Develop practices that enable students to develop the competencies required to become “sustainability stewards”

Stewardship in sustainability entails mindful use and management of resources. Since our return to Borrett two years ago, we’ve made efforts to promote this by adding paper recycling bins to classrooms (which we will continue to do until there is one in every room!), plastic and metal bins around the campus, a composting system, as well as liaising with our school caterer Asia Pacific Catering to replace all single-use cutlery with reusable versions in our canteen. We encourage all students to uphold these efforts by ensuring they dispose of their waste properly and bring their cutlery back to collection points on the G/F and 2/F.

Review our own operations to establish targets for the reduction of energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, water use, and waste;

With the help of TASS and immense support from our catering company Asia Pacific, we are now in the process of adding sustainable meals to our canteen—designed by global celebrity chefs like Tina Barrat and Michael Smith, modified to fit the tastes of Island School. These are vegan and nut, gluten, and dairy-free foods with lower carbon emissions due to the process of how they’ve reached our plates. Stay tuned for more updates regarding this when they are finally released!

Align where possible our built environment with sustainable principles;

As part of a greater initiative within the DT department, the Precious Plastics team at Island School has organised a year-long plastic bottle cap inter-house competition. Read their brief article in this week’s newsletter to learn more.

Seek opportunities to establish collaborative links with like-minded community members in pursuit of this Charter’s aims;

There are a number of student-led, environmental teams in and out of Island School that WANBO members are involved in. If you’re passionate about sustainability and would like to get involved, please see their descriptions below!

Precious Plastics
Are you interested in helping Island School reduce plastic waste? Do you want to learn more about the plastic recycling process? If so, this is the right team for you! Join our group here.

Clean Air Student Council

The Clean Air Student Council is a student-led, environmental NGO under the Clean Air Network. We advocate for better air quality in Hong Kong through education among students and have empowered more than 600 of them through our initiatives. If you’re keen on being involved in environmental education, follow us on Instagram (@clean.air.student.council) or fill in this interest form to stay updated!

Global Goals Council

The GGC focuses on developing awareness of the global goals at Island School by organising events and experiences and also participating in international exchanges with a focus on sustainability. Past examples include our school-wide assembly with the Huni Kuin, our biome workshop and fast fashion competition, as well as our most recent trip to Vietnam representing Island School at the Asian Youth Forum. If you’re a Y10-12 interested in opportunities like this, send your applications our way through this form!

Being environmentally friendly in everything that we do is an integral part of WANBO’s mission. Although Green Week is coming to an end, we implore you all to continue upholding the values of the TASS charter through these ways—or others—as we progress into this academic year. Even the smallest change in your daily habits can have an impact. For example, using ECOSIA, a Google Chrome extension where with every search, you plant a tree!

Every step we take here at Island School is important, so thank you for being a part of our endeavours. Stay Green, Island School!

The slides presented during Monday’s assembly can be found here. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to your WANBO Heads: