AIS hosts Sustainability Essentials Workshop for HE students

The Ateneo Institute of Sustainability (AIS), in collaboration with the Council of Organizations in the Ateneo - Manila (COA - M), hosted the “Sustainability Essentials” Workshop dedicated to Higher Education (HE) students last 2 April 2025 at the Heyden Hall, Manila Observatory at the Loyola Heights Campus. 

This workshop aims to introduce sustainability concepts and provides an interactive platform as to how sustainability can be practiced in their daily lives, within and outside the Ateneo campus. Students from the John Gokongwei School of Management, the School of Sciences and Engineering, and the Dr Rosita G. Leong School of Social Sciences registered, attended, and had direct conversations with AIS in relation to sustainability.

To commence the three-hour workshop, the students were tasked to articulate their understanding of sustainability in their own words. This was followed by lecturettes by  Dr. Emmanuel D. Delocado, Director of AIS, where he tackled topics such as the definition of sustainability, as well as updates on the global and local progress on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). 

The second half of the program focused on sustainability frameworks. Mr. Daniel C. Ratilla, Program Head for Climate Disaster and Resilience, discussed the concepts of circular economy and life cycle analysis. He also shared examples of how Ateneo applies sustainability within its operations, namely the Decentralised Wastewater System (DeWATS), Building Wastewater Treatment Systems (BWATS), and vermicomposting facilities.

To further engage the participants,  Ms. Chris A. Lacdao, Program Head for SDGs, led a charades activity where the participants were tasked to act out sustainability related phrases. Subsequently, a talk on the ecology of daily life and sustainability in shared spaces was given by Ms. Angel Mata-Jamilan, Program Officer for Organizational Sustainability.

As a way of applying their learning from the workshop, students participated in the “Embodying Sustainability” activity, which revolved around identifying personal commitments that manifest behavioral shifts towards sustainability. This was led by Ms. France Arugay, Business Development Officer, and Ms. Ivy Geraldine Ferrer, Program Officer for Climate and Disaster Resilience. Ms. Ferrer also facilitated the plenary sharing, where participants were able to elaborate on their learnings and commitments.

According to Dr. Delocado, AIS will continue to offer more sessions of the Sustainability Essentials workshop, not only to the students, but also to other faculty members and personnel of the campus. He believes that to achieve a sustainable Ateneo needs to entail a whole-of-community approach, where everyone has a shared common goal but differentiated responsibility. Mainstreaming sustainability through this workshop intended to promote awareness and bring in more members of the community to participate in this call to action. As such, students can look forward to similar initiatives and events by AIS.