2023 Sustainability Report

In 2023, the University added a sustainability and climate change risk to the University Risk Register, meaning that University Council and its Audit and Risk Committee now have oversight of how the University manages climate change risk. At a management level, the risk register is reviewed by the University Executive’s Risk Management and Compliance Committee. The Chief Operating Officer is the risk ‘owner’.

Day-to-day responsibility for identifying and managing climate risks and opportunities sits with the leadership of various teams, such as those involved in health and safety, emergency management, business continuity, estate and buildings, and financial planning and reporting, as summarised in this table.

The leadership of the wider University is made aware of climate change related risks and opportunities via the University’s annual Environmental Scan. The scan’s release aligns with the commencement of the University’s high-level strategic and business planning cycle. Sustainability and climate-related information aims to inform leaders of critical sustainability issues so they are appropriately addressed across the University.

The Health and Safety team monitors seasonal weather forecasts and co-ordinates relevant training. For example, over December and January 2023/24, the Emergency and Business Resilience team within Health and Safety Services held a series of free summer fire season safety briefings which were attended by 70+ staff and students. These sessions outlined the fire risk forecast for the 2023/2024 season, including discussion of the impact of climate change on fire risk and behaviour in the Victorian landscape.

Business Continuity Plans were developed, tested and reviewed throughout 2022/23 across various Chancellery departments, faculties, schools and campuses, including consideration of a range of disruptive impacts from natural hazards and disasters including severe weather, floods and fires.

The University applies AS3745 Planning for Emergencies in Facilities, regularly maintaining, updating and testing its suite of emergency preparedness, response and recovery procedures for all campuses and high-risk buildings. The University delivered customised emergency response training to more than 270 emergency wardens during 2023. Several campus and site-specific sessions were also delivered to Emergency Control Organisations (ECOs) to provide them with the skills, knowledge and capability required to undertake their roles. A specific exercise was undertaken at Dookie campus to practice a whole-campus evacuation and shelter-in-place in response to a simulated grassfire emergency with additional support also provided to the Creswick ECO as part of bushfire season preparedness.

The University maintains a Critical Incident Management Framework for significant disruptive events that is aligned to the Australasian Inter-Service Incident Management System (AIIMS) used by emergency services agencies. In 2023, 44 additional staff were onboarded to join the pool of more than 125 members of the Critical Incident Management Team (CIMT) in order to strengthen response capability. 100+ CIMT members undertook comprehensive incident management refresher training across 16 scheduled activities, including workshops and role-specific sessions throughout 2023. A range of scenarios discussed during these sessions included those related to natural disasters.

Two critical incident response exercises were delivered, including a full team half-day stand-up in response to an earthquake event. During 2023, a range of incidents were escalated to rostered Duty Officers and Incident Coordinators by University Security – nine of these were assessed as at a ‘watch and act’ severity level, with the CIMT activated once in response to the Optus outage in October. Of the incidents escalated, several were related to natural hazards including flooding, fires and severe weather.

Climate change risk assessments are required for major projects under the University's building design standards. Assessments in accordance with AS5334 Climate change adaptation for settlements and infrastructure are undertaken by external consultants, supported by in-house expertise, to inform the planning and design of major building projects and campuses. Unacceptable risks are managed through design and operational activities. In 2023, consultants were engaged to develop enabling plans in support of the University’s Estate Master Plan. Part of their scope is to update the University’s campus climate change risk assessments.

The University's Financial Accounting, Tax and Budgeting team and Sustainability Strategy team have begun focused collaboration given the expected changes to Australian Accounting Standards.