Sustainability @ RVRC
Sustainability is intricately woven into the living-learning fabric of RVRC, encompassing the physical environment, academic programme, student and residential life.
RVRC Block G is a Green Mark Gold-Plus certified building that boasts several energy saving, water efficient, and environmentally responsive design features. Most RVRC courses are aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and address various aspects of sustainability ranging from gender equality and sustainable cities to sustainable consumption and climate action. Beyond the academic curriculum, a range of student-led Interest Groups focus on sustainability, engaging students to foster awareness and lead meaningful actions.
Sustainability in RVRC Courses
The RVRC Programme aims to familiarize students with the three pillars of sustainability: economic, environmental, and social, while addressing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Consequently, most courses incorporate sustainability themes into their syllabi. This often involves field trips to observe and assess sustainability issues, industry visits to engage with sustainable businesses, or collaborations with community partners on sustainability-centric projects. Many courses also involve final projects that address real-life sustainability issues, allowing students to work on the NUS campus with different institutional partners as well as collaborate with community and industry partners to implement their solutions beyond the campus.
To find out more about the RVRC Courses and their connection to sustainability please click here
Sustainability in Outdoor Learning
Sustainability is central to the RVRC outdoor education programme, which emphasizes environmental stewardship. Extracurricular outdoor education initiatives connect students with nature and culture in Singapore and abroad. These initiatives focus on physical participation and hands-on activities to engage students beyond the classroom. RVRC encourages students to be curious and open to new experiences, whether through the Kayak & Clean initiatives, the Intertidal Walk and Clean efforts, the Leopard Cat Quest night walks in Pulau Ubin, Heritage Walks to observe cuktural sustainability and conservation needs, and reforestation projects in Chestnut Nature Park.
To find learn more about the RVRC Outdoor Learning programmes that engage students in sustainability click here
Sustainability in RVRC Interest Groups
Sustainbility extends into The RVRC interest group Green Rangers connects students to nature through gardening and environmental activities, such as mangrove and coastal clean-ups. RV Climate Café aims to raise awareness of environmental issues while countering eco-anxiety. RV FoRestore brings together a community that cares for forests, raising awareness and appreciation of Singapore’s forests through hands-on activities like surveys and reforestation projects. RV Photography leads immersive nature walks where environmental awareness is fostered via the alternative format of images. Artelier, the art interest group often leads nature-themed activities using mixed media, once again enabling students to foster awareness and express environmental issues using alternative creative formats. RV CIP reaches out to the community to address human-centric socio-environmental sustainability issues.
To find out more about the RVRC Interest Groups activities centred around sustainability click here
Sustainability in RVRC Student Projects
With RVRC students working with external partners for the ideation and implementation of their project work, the programme embodies the motto "The World is Our Classroom" by empowering them to actualise tangible change in their own community and beyond. Several student proposals have garnered the interest of institutional and external partners and have been successfully executed.
Successful Implementation of Student Projects
RVN2000 Project: No Box No Go
Arista Ho Zhen, Eliza Lim Siew Ping Yi, Hor Kia Wei, and Javier Chia Yi Xian
Our inspiration for eliminating waste packaging in RVRC came during the rubbish sorting activity for our RVN2000 field trip. As we sorted the rubbish produced by RV residents into different categories such as food waste, e-waste, and plastic waste, we noticed that the Grab-and-Go stall in the Dining Hall was producing an excessive amount of single-use disposables. We realised that this was in direct contradiction to the ethos of RVRC as a sustainable community. After being aware of the impact the amount of waste was having on the environment and our community, we proposed to eliminate packaging waste generated by the Grab-and-Go stall. This would not only reduce the volume of single-use disposables in RVRC, but also align with NUS Zero Waste's goal of eliminating single-use disposables by 2025. We believed that this project was feasible and could be implemented in RVRC as long as we remained that the ability to change and contribute to our community does not have to be a top-down approach but from ourselves as students.
RVN2001 Project: Rewilding Yishun Park
Soh Yong Xian Dan, Lo Mei Hui, Yeoh Jun Ting, Heng Chin Yee, Sarah, and Brian Chow Wei Xuan
As part of our RVN2001: The Great Extinction: conservation and rewilding course’s final project, we proposed a rewilding plan for an under-utilised site in Yishun Park. We determined that the site – a small, sheltered area at the fringe of Yishun Park’s forest with spaced-out trees but no undergrowth – could be rewilded to extend the forest fringe outwards as a forest buffer zone. We decided on the strategy of deliberate rewilding: planting trees and shrubs, due to its shorter implementation timeframe. As part of our proposal, we researched on the benefits of rewilding as a buffer zone, and provided a justification of benefits to relevant stakeholders should the proposal be implemented. The proposal was then pitched to NParks, as well as MP Louis Ng of Nee Soon GRC with the backing of RVRC and Nature Society Singapore. After initial meetings with NParks at Yishun Park and understanding various factors about the site, we came to an agreement with NParks for our project to be registered under the Youth Stewards for Nature 2023 programme, which made our project official. In our implementation, we conducted site surveys to document resident fauna, planned and executed a tree planting event with RVRC student volunteers. We aim to observe an increase in resident fauna in the site in future site surveys after the tree planting event, so that our project can be considered a success.
RVN2000 Project: Dining Hall Meals for RV Community Workers
Beatrice Chen Sung Ting, Daniel Christopher Chan, Higashi Shion, Ryan Lim Guan Quan
RVRC Dining Hall faces a daily issue of leftover unserved food being discarded after each meal time. We sought to understand the major causes of this sustainability problem and explore possible solutions to reduce the levels of food wastage. After several ideation rounds, we decided on communicating the distribution of unserved food to RVRC community and extending dining hall meals to RVRC community workers. What began as an attempt to reduce food waste has since transformed into a community initiative that allows RVRC community workers to dine communally with the rest of RVRC, supported by the donation of meal credits by fellow RVRC students.
