World Environment Day Today

Become an ‘agent of change’ and celebrate the UN’s biggest day for positive environmental action

The Health, Safety & Environment (HSE) Department invites you to do your bit for World Environment Day (WED) today, June 5. You can make a lasting difference by signing up to the Green Office Certification Program, which will support your office’s pledge to minimize waste and energy use, move towards alternative transport use and raise sustainability awareness.

WED serves as the “people’s day” for doing something to take care of the Earth. We can all choose to reduce our impact in some way. Reducing, reusing and recycling is a good place to start.

In 2015, the KAUST community consumed an estimated 8,500 water bottles per day, or 3 million mixed polyethylene terephthalate (PET*) bottles over the year. Recycling is great, but it’s the last step in the chain of the “3 Rs.” We can all become “agents for change” by simply choosing to use reusable water bottles and refill them from our taps. By doing this, we will reduce our waste and energy use. It’s not complicated and doesn’t take that much effort.

However, this choice will make a big difference: a reusable bottle can be used again and again all year long. We would save resources by reducing our energy use and avoiding generating unnecessary waste. It’s a win for all of us, not to mention for our planet we call home.

*PET = Polyethylene terephthalate