Onorevoli Ministru, Kollegi u Studenti, speċjalment il-freshers tal-2018,

 

Merħba lilkom f’din l-okkażjoni dalgħodu waqt li qegħdin flimkien hawnhekk biex niċċelebraw il-ftuħ tas-sena akkademika 2018. 

 

Bħas-soltu nibda billi ngħid kelmtejn b’ilsienna allavolja naf li hemm fostna studenti barranin u anke lekċerers li ma jifhmux lingwitna. Jien ma nistgħax niċċelebra l-ftuħ tas-sena akkademika ta’ universita’ li jisimha uffiċjalment 'L-Università ta’ Malta' b’lingwa li mhix il-Malti. Dan nagħmlu wkoll sabiex l-istudenti ta’ din l-Università qadima iżommu f’moħħhom li l-fatt li għandhom ilsien li hu differenti minn dak ta’ ħaddieħor, ilsien li jinsab fl-użu u qed jevolvi maż-żmien, hu privileġġ li mhux mogħti liċ-ċittadini kollha tal-globu. U hu proprju dan l-Ilsien li jiddefinixxi b’mod l-iktar ċar min aħna bħala nazzjon.

 

Personalment, nixtieq li kull min qed jiġi biex jaħdem u jagħmel żmien magħna fuq dawn il-gżejjer iħoss il-bżonn li jitgħallem juża l-lingwa tal-pajjiż, speċjalment jekk xogħlu jinvolvi kuntatt man-nies fejn il-komunikazzjoni hi importanti. U din ma tgħoddx biss għat-tobba, infermiera, għalliema eċċ imma anke għal dawk li jservu f’ristoranti, lukandi u postijiet oħra fejn klijenti li jitkellmu bil-Malti biss huma trattati qishom li waqgħu mill-qamar: iġegħluk tħossok qiegħed f’pajjiż barrani minflok f’Malta jew f’Għawdex. Mn’alla li l-maġġoranza tal-Maltin huma bilingwi u li t-tieni lsien hu l-lingwa franca internazzjonali: immaġinaw x’konna nagħmlu li kieku t-tieni lingwa kienet il-Pollakk jew il-Finlandiż, jew l-Urdu! Imma sabiex jifhimni kulħadd, se naqleb għall-Ingliż, l-ilsien l-ieħor tagħna.

 

Dear international staff and students, welcome to the new academic year: I would like to give a particularly warm welcome to the Freshers of 2018 and also the postgraduate community of students who came to UM to further their more advanced studies with us.

 

Last year I spoke about the importance of research as part of the education imparted at a university, and the year before that the message was about the importance of proper communication and the role of reading in improving and consolidating that crucial skill. This year I shall focus on a theme that is as critically important for the global and the local community as is good communication; and, incidentally, one which requires effective and continuing research in order to be properly addressed.  I am referring to the vital need for citizens, including the University community, to learn how to live sustainably. And then, more importantly, act accordingly.

 

Try Googling the words 'sustainable living': that brings up nearly 7 million hits. So, clearly, the subject is written about profusely, which unfortunately doesn’t mean that the idea of sustainable living has necessarily been internalized and embraced by the majority. I am convinced that, as an important and influential voice in society, this and other universities worldwide should make it their business to teach sustainability as a key theme that permeates the diverse offerings across the academic spectrum. 

 

The term sustainability or sustainable development was defined authoritatively by the World Commission on Environment and Development, better known as the Brundtland Commission, an independent and international group of thinkers that was appointed by UN General Secretary Javier Perez de Cuellar in 1983 to try to grapple with the problems of poverty in a world riven with inequalities and facing clear signs of environmental degradation caused mainly by the greed and gluttony for resources of the industrialized rich world. For those who wanted to see, the signs were indeed evident: an alarming and steady rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide, dramatic stratospheric ozone depletion, acid rain and deforestation, contraction of the polar ice caps. As computing power and sophisticated tools and methods developed and joined hands, analytical chemistry advanced rapidly and environmental chemists could reveal serious signs of widespread and persistent pollution in air, drinking water, playing fields and school grounds and inside homes. This was the background that impelled the United Nations to act.

 

In Our Common Future, the principal and influential text from the Brundtland Commission, the word 'environment' is defined as the place where we live and 'development' is what we all do in attempting to improve our lot within that abode. And following those definitions, the document includes a terse, stern sentence: 'The two are inseparable.' The same source explains that environment is not just the physical space that we occupy but also includes the social, cultural and political realities of nations.  

 

According to the Brundtland Commission, sustainable development is that which 'meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.' And flowing from this concept are two key ideas, namely that meeting the needs of the poor should take precedence and the recognition that the state of technology and social organization limits the environment’s ability to meet both present and future needs. 

 

We live in a society that, wittingly or not, preaches the value of consumption and thrift is often associated with poor and sub-standard existence. One associates industrialization and abundant production of goods and services with prosperity and affluence: indeed a country’s wellbeing is often measured by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita (the monetary value of finished goods and services produced in a given period in the country divided by the size of the population). A rising GDP means improved wellbeing, even though the economic wealth is never equally distributed between the citizenry.

 

Since consumption mimics affluence and given that consumption generally generates waste, then one expects that, for example, municipal solid waste (MSW) produced per capita in a country should also be a measure of 'good living' of its citizens: in the EU, Denmark tops the list of MSW generation (777kg) but Malta is not far behind, being the fourth most important MSW generator at 621 kg/capita (2016). The EU state which produces the least waste is Romania, which at 261 kg/cap, produces less than half that by Malta. 

 

Keeping waste generation to a minimum, including through religious commitment to 'the five R’s' (reduce, reuse, recycle, recover, residual management: in that order) will go some way towards making our existence on this small, very limited land mass more sustainable for current and future generations. But are we truly committed to the 5 R’s or do we put trust only in the last R, where managing the 'residual' is, for us, tantamount to managing most all of the wastes we generate. 

 

What are our general credentials, as a country, in sustainable development? 

 

Waste: Malta has the poorest record of the EU-28 in the recycling of waste: only 8% is recycled or composted and the rest goes to landfill. 

 

Renewable energy: Malta has the lowest renewable electricity generation of the EU countries: only 6% of our energy needs derived from renewable sources in 2016: Austria generates 73% (also thanks to its geology and hydroenergy), Sweden 65%, Denmark 54%. Our target for 2020 is 10% but will we reach it? 

 

Water: when annual water supplies fall below 1000 m3 per capita, the population faces what is technically known as 'water scarcity'; below 500 m3 per capita, the situation is termed 'absolute scarcity'. For Malta, the sustainable supply is a mere 40 m3 which places us among the most water-scarce countries in the world. Only 23 million m3 of groundwater are sustainably available for extraction and use but consumption is estimated to be about 65 million m3. Do our fellow citizens realize that water continues to flow from their taps on demand only because energy expensive technology forces salt out of seawater but in the process adds harmful carbon dioxide in the air and depletes the national bank account?  

 

Physical space: Malta is the EU country that is most cluttered with buildings and other artificial land uses: the average fraction of man-made land cover for the EU-28 is 5% while the value for Malta is 24% (2015 data). Clearly, the quality of life of its citizens is affected negatively by the fact that it is almost impossible to take a break from the built environment while you remain on the islands. 

 

I am unsure as to which of these grave environmental challenges is the most serious for us today; or if these are each less serious than the general apathy that seems to grip our collective mind to prevent us from taking seriously our commitment towards environmental sustainability. 

 

These are the reasons why I felt the need to put sustainability as a focus of attention this morning. Education, be it higher, further or school-based, that fails to properly teach students to recognize and respond to the serious challenges involved in ensuring a sustainable future is seriously superficial and possibly dysfunctional. If one knows the facts and understands clearly the implications, one cannot possibly remain passive and not act, hopefully in concert with the rest of society, to do something about it. As a university, we should also employ our brains towards substantial research efforts addressing sustainability problems. And as an institution, we have to behave and act as sustainably as possible in order to lead by example. For this purpose, I have set up an 8-person Committee for Sustainability at UM (C-SUM) tasked with championing sustainability actions at the University. Actions will need to be taken, because actions speak louder than words. The guiding principles for C-SUM are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) identified by the UN which target not just the physical but also the social environment to include issues of inequality, peace, justice and well-being. Moreover, we have deliberately and consciously included sustainability as one of the pillars or core themes upon which we will, this year, evolve our Strategy for the University. 

 

In fairness sake, one has to mention that, over the recent years, we have quietly been taking important steps to deal with, for example, minimizing energy use on campus (by controlling air conditioning set temperatures and operating times; changing over to low energy lighting units etc); installing PV panels over most of the suitable flat surfaces on campus; constructing a green roof as a demonstrator unit for others to emulate etc. We are improving health services for our students and staff on campus and our Quality Assurance Committee is working assiduously to promote a culture and commitment to quality outcomes in all our academic and administrative processes, as befits an institution that wants to develop sustainably. Moreover, several research and innovation projects have been undertaken by our researchers in pursuit of novel measures which address sustainability.

 

Most of these important actions have not been celebrated sufficiently and several, in our community and beyond it, likely don’t even know about them.  This is a fault that we need to correct because the University has to be, and also and above all, be seen to be a light in the general darkness of achievements in sustainable development in Malta. 

 

Finally, let me close by stating that individually, each one of us can take small but effective steps to help our community and beyond it to reach the sustainability targets in deference to future generations: as a collective body of researchers, teachers and learners, we have at our disposal the most powerful tools available for the purpose of promoting the cause, namely, education and research. May we all join efforts to make this happen for our children and theirs.


Professor Alfred Vella
Rector