Sustainable cities and communities

11. Sustainable Cities and Communities

In 2020, the University launched, or began “The Sustainability Neighbourhood.”

This is a sustainability model for students living in flats. It supports students who would like to live more sustainably by getting them to grow their own food, compost, recycle, use energy efficiently, and lead active healthy lives.

Sustainable cities and communities also means providing sustainable ways to commute for staff and students to and from the university. For example, it encourages people to use more energy-efficient transport, such as catching the bus, using e-bikes, and e-cars.

Charging places for e-bikes and cars also encourages people to think about alternative ways to commute; especially when parking spaces are getting harder and harder to find. There are also free-ride parks, free shuttle services, as well as safe and convenient bicycle stands.

The project that supports this goal is called “Green Your Scene.” This will be looked at in more detail later in this course.

Another way to sustain cities and communities is to have places that display the cultural heritage of a place. Cultural heritage is displayed in public museums, libraries, and other spaces. One place that is one of New Zealand’s most important collections of cultural heritage, and includes many important Māori exhibits is the “Hocken Collection.”

Other ways of sustaining cultural heritage is by providing performance and exhibition spaces, giving lectures, and supporting out-reach programmes, that include theatre and music concerts throughout the year.

1. Look at the sentence and write your answers in the comments below:

“It supports students who would like to live more sustainably by getting them to grow their own food, compost, recycle, use energy efficiently, and lead active healthy lives.”

KEY VOCABULARY

1. cultural 2. alternative 3. communities 4. sustaining 5. exhibition

*Note: this vocabulary has been filtered through the Academic Word List from sublist 1 – up to and including sublist 5. Therefore, this course is designed to fit Intermediate Level English language learning students and above