In an interview with Dr. Mohammad Kafi: Green Campuses and How to Achieve them

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In an interview with the office of public relations at the First International Conference on Green University, Dr. Mohammad Kafi thanked the organizers and added that one of the signs of a green university is the participation of all members in green initiatives. Academics are a sophisticated and powerful section of the society and if a society is to be governed based on science, it should look to universities as examples. Any movement based on science will be carried into the society by graduates and expand.
He pointed to achieving a green university as one of the important goals of Ferdowsi University’s strategic plan and added that a green university minimizes its energy consumption and consumes non-polluting energies and interacts with nature with kindness. This conference is organized in FUM to pave the way to these goals. In line with these ideas, the Steering Committee of Green University in FUM is an entity that guides executive plans of the university towards the realization of a green university.
The President of FUM noted the successes of regional and international universities in implementing green policies and encouraged Iranian universities to take advantage of such experiences. We believe we have a reached a level of development and sophistication to be able to offer a model for other universities. That is why we organized this conference on an international level.
Stressing the importance of conserving the environment, Dr. Kafi said: Any successful plan needs culture-building and dialogue. We believe a national comprehensive movement is needed to effect this culture change. The Minister of Science, Research and Technology, his deputies and experts from the Management and Planning Organization of Iran will attend the Conference. Their attendance will help create a national movement, in the next step mechanisms should be put in place to incentivize universities to voluntarily move toward sustainability.
Explaining communication between the university and society as one of the main aims of the strategic plan of FUM, Dr. Kafi said: FUM tries to deepen and expand its ties with the society. The best example of this commitment is the role of the FUM community in pollution control and the design of eco-friendly systems in urban and personal contexts. He expressed optimism about the cooperation between FUM and the municipality of Mashhad and other cities in the province.
Dr. Kafi criticized the wastefulness in Iranian universities and pointed to this issue as one of the aspects where there is room for progress. Although FUM has a large campus, it does not take more than 15 minutes to walk from one end to the other. Currently we are using busses on campus but we plan to have a car-free campus in the future.
Highlighting the role of waste management on campus, the President of University described FUM’s plans to switch the sources of water used for irrigating the landscape from groundwater to recycled waste water. He outlined the plans to establish an on-campus treatment plant and use its output for irrigation purposes.
In the end, referring to the technomarket staged as a part of the First International Conference on Green University, Dr. Kafi asserted the importance of commercialization of technologies and outlined the role of this process in creating the drive towards sustainability in the society. The goal technomarkets is to introduce to managers and academics products that have the potential to create value. Along the technomarket, the green startup initiative creates the opportunity for individuals to present their ideas to potential investors.

Category: Conference News

Written by Hamed Bidel

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