Sustainability

From HIT Lab NZ

• Outreach Program
• Volunteering
• Sustainability
• Social

The HIT Lab NZ has been taking the initiative to reduce their environmental impact and use a general sustainable approach in the context of their everyday activities. It's generally said that changing the habits and methods of staff and students but also the general organization process to be more eco-friendly can be a tedious and a costly process for an organization. Indeed, it has been demonstrated recently that a large part is related to growing the awareness of the ecological and economical issues to the people and simple low cost budget actions can already make a difference in the first step to be more "green" for your organization.

At the HIT Lab NZ we have been trying to follow this pace to improve to a more fully sustainable approach of our organization. Above being fully supportive of the University Sustainability policies and UoC sustainable events, we have been trying to push further with our participation in additional actions but also adapting required changes towards our specific structure.

Place

As the image of a "green" redesign of our logo, we encourage recycling and reducing energy consumption at the lab. For this, we have been using some visual guidance (sometimes embellished with funny pictures) by signing different rooms and offices for:

• Double sided printing, using a special recycling trail, increasing information about recycling.
• Switching off lighting and equipment after work and over the week end.
• Removing unnecessary out of season equipment.
• Exhibiting our policy at a public place in the lab to encourage creativity and participation.

We have also tried to make benefit of technologies like using automatic timers for energy management but also monitoring our activity and progress through dedicated software. Complimentary, we are also investigating how to design any simple usable applet (like web widgets) that can help you to improve and monitor your carbon footprint and energy usage.

People

Galvanized by the engagement of the University in a sustainability program or also already previously personally involved and supporter of a sustainable approach, different people at the HIT Lab are contributing in their personal and social life to reduce their carbon footprint and act more eco-friendly. Some comments of some engaged HIT Lab people are presented below, describing what each of them are doing, and how they envisage that their actions have a positive impact for the environment.

	Julian: 'I started biking to work for fitness, but now I also find it enjoyable and cheap. The fact that it is better for the environment is an added bonus.'
	Katrin: 'I volunteer at the Community Garden of Canterbury University because it is fun and beside I like to support the idea of permaculture and organic gardening.'

Research

A large part of the HIT Lab NZ research is focusing on the development of new interfaces and their associated metaphors based on emergent technologies. In the community of Computer Human Interaction Research, the issue of making interactive technologies more sustainable has been growing recently (termed as sustainable design or sustainable interface, see for example 1, 2, 3). Some major goals to achieve over the coming years are:

• Identify major factors to improve CHI research process, design, development with new technologies with a more sustainable approach
• Improve the research process to be more sustainable (from design to scholarly presentation of the research contributions)
• Favour design and development of sustainable interfaces

At this early stage, the HIT Lab NZ aims to tackle and framework some of these issues in their research activity. With this intent, we have already reduced our travels to the profit of the usage of VideoConferencing tools (based on KAREN network, see AVCC).

If you want more information about our approach but also our intent of research in the area contact (sustainability coordinator at the HIT Lab NZ) or