Australian National University

ONE CAMPUS, ONE PLANET

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HOW ANU IS HARNESSING ANALYTICS TO PLAN A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE FOR ITS CANBERRA CAMPUS WRITTEN BY

DAN BRIGHTMORE PRODUCED BY

RYAN HALL

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The Australian National University (ANU) has applied the one planet methodology to its recent redevelopment of the campus’ central precinct. It has also pioneered socially responsible investment and a sustainable approach to energy use in its new campus master plan 04

T

he Australian National University’s Acton campus, in the capital city of Canberra, is populated by 24,000 students (6,000

of whom live on site) and over 4,000 staff; the ANU campus is practically a city in its own right.

To support ANU’s diverse range of needs – managing physical facilities, IT, corporate governance, finances and more – Chief Operating Officer Chris Grange and his colleagues oversee strategic planning to push forward the performance metrics for all areas of campus life. “My role balances the need to improve the physical development of the campus today while setting up frameworks to maintain that into the future,” explains Grange. “We’ve completed 2,000 new student beds on campus during my time here (since 2013) and we have construction currently underway to deliver another 900.”

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AU$1.3bn Endowment

1946

Year founded

4,000

Approximate number of employees

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“ My role balances the need to improve the physical development of the campus today while setting up frameworks to maintain that into the future”

gas and water. “We’ve seen improve-

— Chris Grange, Chief Operating Officer, Australian National University

and smart devices.”

ments to our analytics platform in terms of understanding student behaviours, perceptions, evaluations and other metrics. One of the key changes for us has been to use data to inform decision making within the university. When you apply that to the physical fabric of the campus, you’re really moving into the Internet of Things (IoT), with sensors Universities are complex organisations, requiring many individual pieces of technology to support disparate functions. One of the biggest challenges

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for ANU has been getting those pieces of technology to talk to each other and The Acton campus is enormous, with

share information in real time. “We’ve

over 200 buildings across 145 hectares

made a considerable investment in

of land directly adjoining the Canberra

doing that,” asserts Nicki Middleton,

CBD, “so actually knowing rather than

Director of Facilities and Services.

guessing what’s going on around the

ANU’s technologically-enabled smart

campus is a really important part of

infrastructure network uses an open

deploying technology”, says Grange.

source communication and control

He notes the significance in recent

data network within the university

years of focusing on analysis and

to provide demand management

information management – whether

capability through a Building Monitoring

measuring the number of students

and Control System (BMCS), interfacing

going into classes, or deploying

with sensors, building services and

metering technologies to measure

appliances. “Ultimately we’re aiming for

real-time campus usage of electricity,

smart buildings which are sensor filled

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E XE CU T I VE PRO FI LE

Chris Grange Chris Grange has been working in universities for 30 years.

During this time he’s witnessed an enormous amount of change, as these institutions become increasingly sophisticated in the way they approach and manage a diverse range of issues, from expansion to energy planning. “That applies to sustainability, finance and technology,” adds Grange. “The amount of concrete improvement that universities are already achieving leads me to conclude there’s just so many more exciting opportunities to come.” Grange spent 25 years at the University of Wollongong in finance and personnel roles and as Vice Principal for Administration before joining the ANU in 2013.

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E XECU T I VE P RO FI LE

Nicki Middleton Nicki Middleton is the Director, Facilities and Services at the ANU, arriving at the University in early 2018. She is responsible for all major capital developments, as well as campus services like maintenance, security, cleaning, parking and visitor accommodation. Since her arrival, she has championed the development, and most recently, implementation of a new master plan for the ANU campus which will transform the campus over the coming years. The plan is one of the first campus master plans by any university to embed sustainability and energy management within the fabric of the overall plan.

and capable of, not just following a

is vital. Cisco has aided us with our

more efficient program, but actually

infrastructure and the further work that

adapting themselves and moderating

will come in that space. Major vendors

their energy consumptions based upon

like Oracle, provide and support many

what the sensors tell them about the

of our most important applications,”

usage of the building,” says Middleton.

confirms Grange.

“Eventually, this is fertile ground for AI

The university’s approach to Socially

and other concepts to be applied to our

Responsible Investment (SRI) and

building management.”

the management of its AUD$1.4bn

Allied to that investment, ANU is

endowment raised eyebrows back in

partnered with IBM for its analytics

2015 when it divested from stocks not

platform, Cisco for its IT network and

in keeping with its social responsibility

Oracle for business solutions and

strategy. “Some elements of the press

major applications. “IBM’s tools have

were very antagonistic,” says Investment

helped us gain a better understanding

Office Director, Mary Fallon, “but the

of what’s happening within the university,

feedback on social media and via email

and how well we are performing, which

from our students, alumni and the local

E X E CU T I VE P RO FI LE

Mary Fallon Mary is Director of the Investment Office at ANU, where she is responsible for the management of the University’s investment portfolio and treasury funds. Prior to her appointment during 2016, Mary held a variety of senior investment positions in the United States, Europe and in Australia, including Allianz Pimco and QBE. Mary’s interest in the education sector began with her role as Chief Investment Officer for NGS Super, a $7billion superannuation scheme for Australian independent schools. Since joining the university, Mary has implemented a holistic approach to the measurement and implementation of the University’s Socially Responsible Investment policy.

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community was enormously positive.”

Fallon has been driving further changes over recent years. “We have reconsidered our management of international equities, revised the funds and investment mandate, and overlaid our SRI policy to our international equities management, applying performance metrics on carbon reduction to how we invest and who we invest in.” ANU has done the same with its domestic equities investment.

“We have consistently achieved a 25% 12

reduction or more in the carbon intensity of our domestic portfolio than the ASX200 benchmark” reveals Fallon who believes ANU has been a pioneer in that space.

“We’re now seeing the industry and the investment houses moving to accommodate Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and socially responsible investment, it’s a muchimproved marketplace,” she notes.

“Aberdeen Standard Investment, for example, applies the same ESG standards found in equity portfolios to fixed interest portfolios.” That overlay excludes investment in companies that derive more than 20% of their

revenues from coal, gambling, tobacco or pornography.

Grange maintains the development of the Kambri Precinct on campus has been ANU’s biggest improvement in physical facilities in recent years. “It’s a question of how you create a precinct, not just a single building, but an operating precinct which is sustainable from the ground up,” he explains. “We were looking for a method to measure the long-term sustainability of the precinct, and that’s where we landed on the ‘one planet’ methodology, using it to measure all of the outputs of this group of seven buildings and outdoor spaces, designing a sustainable outcome.”

Alongside the emphasis on metering and monitoring, ANU encourages initiatives like the use of recycled materials and rainwater harvesting. Canberra, as a city, already draws around 90% of its power from green sources, and ANU is one of the two largest consumers of electricity in Canberra.

“The one planet methodology compares you to the sustainability of the planet in its natural state,” explains Grange. “One is neutral so if your score is higher you’re depleting the resources w w w.a nu . ed u . a u

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C O M PA N Y FACT S

• ANU ranked first in Australia and 29th in the QS World University Rankings • 25,500 students • 96% of research at ANU is rated above world standard • 15 individual subjects ranked in the world top 25, 13 are number one in Australia

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• 5-star maximum rating in the Good Universities Guide 2019 • 5,000 students live on campus • Six Nobel Laureates among staff and alumni

of the planet. Less than one, and you’re actually making a positive contribution back to the planet. In Kambri, we’ve achieved a score of 0.7. The challenge now is to apply those learnings progressively to the rest of the campus.”

Grange muses that in a city already green, the drive must be to become more efficient, reduce the amount of energy consumed and give back to the wider city.

The new Campus master plan’s key goals for ANU’s Acton campus include an energy management strategy with five main objectives to become: a leading energy efficient campus; a carbon positive community with 100% renewable energy; a technologically enabled infrastructure network; capable of independently certified excellence and a platform for infrastructure innovation. The most important innovation for Middleton is the creation of a number of central energy plants.

“The traditional concept is to manage energy building by building, but when you’re operating a university campus you have enormous opportunities to get economies of scale by servicing multiple buildings or using the outputs from one building to serve another. w w w.a nu . ed u . a u

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For example, we have a supercomputer consuming around 25% of all electricity used by the entire campus. The by-product is the generation of an enormous amount of heat. We can capture that heat and reuse it in other buildings, to power hot water systems in student accommodation, for instance. Having already created two of these central energy plants, we’re now working on the concept for a third. The aim is to implement this process across the university and harvest the energy 18

efficiencies we get and share the benefits across facilities.”

“ Ultimately we’re aiming for smart buildings which are sensor filled and capable of actually adapting themselves and moderating their energy consumptions” — Nicki Middleton, Director, Facilities and Services, Australian National University

The ‘energy trilemma’ ANU faces encapsulates the tensions between three distinct aims for future energy systems: maintaining a reliable and secure energy supply; ensuring long term affordability, and drastically reducing GHG emissions associated with energy supply. The ANU will need to roll out large scale, on campus, electricity storage based on batteries, to reduce the significant cost of peak charges, infrastructure upgrades, and reduce network stresses. New campus

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buildings with PVs will also incorporate

outside Canberra where we can feed

battery storage. This can be via

that power into the university and

connection to a Hub facility, or local

beyond from 2021.”

storage within the building.

“Demonstrating our green power

With the energy Grange, Middleton, Fallon, Kayser and their colleagues are

commitment is important,” reasons

bringing to their task, the future looks

Grange. Si Kayser, Associate Director,

both smarter and greener for the ANU’s

Capital Financing says “We’re doing

campus and the wider community.

that with solar power roof installations but it doesn’t move the dial in terms of our total energy equation. That’s why we are working with a partner on a on the concept of a 5MW solar farm w w w.a nu . ed u . a u

Acton, ACT, Australia 2601 T +61 2 6125 1234 www.anu.edu.au