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19 September 2023 | Story University of the Free State | Photo Supplied
Staff from UFS University Estates: Engineering Services; Obakeng Mocwana, Ben Mhlomi, Sibusiso Lediga, Waylon Kruger, Alain Isaacs, and Nicolaas Esterhuysen.

Last year, the University of the Free State (UFS) launched a progressive institutional strategy, which contains bold but achievable goals to maximise its impact on society. Vision 130 expresses the institution’s intent and commitment to be acknowledged by peers and society as a top-tier university in South Africa, ranked among the best in the world. It highlights key focus areas for the period leading up to 2034 when the university celebrates 130 years of existence. A set of key values have been identified to guide UFS strategies and operations – with sustainability occupying a central space.

As an institution of teaching and learning, research, and engagement, the UFS wants to use its strategic position to drive sustainability issues by establishing green campuses and adopting sustainable built environment practices.

It aims to renew, rejuvenate, regenerate, and revisit facilities and infrastructure. This includes a commitment to implementing energy-saving and effective water management initiatives for greater sustainability.

Solar energy

A flagship renewable energy project is the installation of solar plants across the three UFS campuses in response to the call for urgent solutions to load-shedding problems, and promoting sustainable, clean energy solutions.

The microgrid installation on the Qwaqwa Campus in the Eastern Free State is one of the biggest solar-diesel hybrid systems in South Africa, enabling this campus to keep running despite excessive power interruptions in the region.

The installed grid-tied solar plants operate without batteries on all three campuses, giving the university an optimal configuration between capital cost and payback period.
The UFS has saved up to R32,5 million since the first solar plant was commissioned in 2017. This will soon increase substantially with the commissioning of two large new ground-mounted solar plants on the Bloemfontein Campus.

Waterwise landscaping

Changing environmental conditions are putting precious water resources under strain across the world – especially in drought-prone sub-Saharan Africa.  

The UFS has been implementing innovative waterwise and greywater initiatives over the past couple of years in response to continuous local drought conditions and sporadic water restrictions, replacing large expanses of lawn with hard elements and paving, as well as waterwise indigenous plants, including a range of hardy succulents. 

Rainwater harvesting systems have been fitted at all residences and academic buildings. Other water-saving initiatives include greywater systems installed at residences, waterless urinals in administrative and academic buildings, water restrainers, pressure control systems (reducing the volume of water) and push-button systems instead of taps.  

Encouraging energy-saving results

A clear indication that the energy-saving measures are yielding positive results is that energy consumption has decreased with 14,5% since 2017, even though the gross surface area of the university has grown with 8,8%.

UFS carbon emissions have shown a significant reduction over the years – from 0.115 CO2/m2 in 2013 to 0.088 CO2/m2 in 2022 – making it a frontrunner in low carbon emissions among South African higher education institutions.  This is mainly due to the implementation of energy-efficient strategies and solar generation, effectively minimising energy consumption. 

The UFS not only prioritises sustainability as a fundamental institutional focus, but also actively engages in numerous projects that contribute to a more sustainable world, aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. In this way, it lives up to its mission to be a research-led, student-centred, and regionally engaged institution that contributes to development and social justice through the production of globally competitive graduates and knowledge. 

Energy-efficient buildings

The UFS has thorough guidelines for pursuing sustainability in its built environment, with factors such as energy efficiency given meticulous consideration when new buildings and structures are planned. The university also measures and tracks energy consumption in all its existing buildings.

On the Bloemfontein Campus, the multi-functional Modular Lecture Building offers flexible teaching and learning spaces, where large numbers of students exchange knowledge and information in an environment enhanced and supported by electronic media. This facility is considered a hub for innovative learning, recently receiving a National Merit Award from the South African Institute of Architects (SAIA). Adjudicators noted that the building sets a benchmark for rational planning and technical efficiency and helps to complete the campus urban framework through its placing and material choices.

The building incorporated various energy-saving measures in its design, including building orientation to optimise exposure to sunlight in spaces where it matters, seasonal sun control, double glazing and louvres for energy conservation, rainwater harvesting and storage on the roof of the building, trees and waterwise landscaping.

This facility forms part of an endeavour to create a cohesive campus identity that improves the university’s core business, and exemplifies its emphasis on innovation and excellence.

The UFS has adopted technical guidelines for building design and development, following the rating systems and tools developed by the Green Building Council of South Africa (GBCSA), which are used for the certification of sustainability performance in the built environment. These guidelines, which apply to indoor environmental quality, energy, materials, land use ecology, emissions, innovation, and water, among others, form part of the measures used when new buildings are developed.
 
Research on water and water quality 

In line with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), several UFS researchers are involved with important research efforts on water and water quality, including:

• Centre for Environmental Management: The use of freshwater algae to treat acid mine drainage or domestic wastewater.
This research, which has earned a coveted NSTF-South32 award, focuses on a more circular use of resources where waste is reduced and resources are recycled, which has driven a paradigm shift within the scientific community about wastewater solutions.

• Centre for Mineral Biogeochemistry: Developing sustainable water treatment options using biogeochemical processes in engineered technology.
The UFS has established a Mineral Biogeochemistry Research Infrastructure Platform as part of a national initiative to promote the science of biogeochemistry as a strategic objective in South Africa. It also focuses on agricultural bio-augmentation research with industry partners to help ensure long-term food security in Africa.

• Institute for Groundwater Studies (IGS): Research on fractured rock aquifers, industrial and mining contamination, groundwater governance and groundwater resource. 

The IGS water research laboratory has ISO 17025 accreditation from the South African National Accreditation System (SANAS) for all its methods, setting it apart in the field of contract research on water-related topics in the mining and industrial sectors.


 

 

WATCH: UFS' Sustainable Energy Initiatives



News Archive

Open letter from Prof Jonathan Jansen to all UFS students
2014-02-22

Dear Students of the University of the Free State

In the past four years there has emerged a new consensus on the three campuses of the University of the Free State (UFS) about the things that divide us – such as racism, sexism and homophobia. Students and campus leaders have worked hard to develop this new consensus in residences and in the open spaces on campus. There can be no doubt that new bonds of friendship have developed across the markers of race, ethnicity, class, religion and sexual orientation. I bear witness to these new solidarities every day on the campus.

You chose a white student to head up the transformation portfolio on the SRC. You chose a black captain to head up the university’s first team in rugby. You chose a white “prime” as head of residence to lead a predominantly black men’s residence. You chose a South African woman of Indian descent as Rag Queen and last week, a black student from Cape Town as the men’s Rag winner—choices not possible and never made before in our campus history. Many of you have intimate friends who come from different social or cultural or religious backgrounds. You learn together, share rooms together, pray together and party together. In other words, in the day to day workings of this university campus, you have demonstrated to campus, city and country that we can overcome the lingering effects of racism and other maladies in this new generation. You have helped create a university community inclusive of people of diverse religions, abilities, class and sexual orientation.

I have said this repeatedly that from time to time this new consensus will be tested – when a minority of students, and they are a small and dwindling minority, still act as if these are the days of apartheid. And when that consensus is tested as it was this week, and as it will be tested in the future, only then we will be able to assess the strength and durability of our progress in creating a new South African campus culture of human togetherness based on respect, dignity and embrace.

The real test of our leadership, including student leadership, is how we respond when our transformation drive is threatened.

Let me say this: I have absolute faith in you, as students of this great university, to stand together in your condemnation of these vile acts of violence and to move together in your determination to maintain the momentum for the Human Project of the University of the Free State. We have come too far to allow a few criminals to derail what you have built together in recent years.

There will, no doubt, be unscrupulous people on all sides of the political spectrum wanting to milk this tragedy for their own narrow purposes. There will be false information, rumours and exaggerations by those who wish to inflame a bad situation to gain mileage for their agendas. That is inevitable in a country that is still so divided.

I ask you, through all of this, to keep perspective. Two or ten or even twenty students behaving badly do not represent 30,000 students; a minority of violent and hateful persons do not represent the ideals, ambitions and commitments of the majority. At the same time, let us be realistic – anyone who thinks you can drive transformation without resistance clearly does not understand the difficult process of change.

The events of the week remind us, however, that we still have a long road to walk in deepening social and academic transformation at our university. Yes, we have invested hundreds of hours in training and mentorship; we have created new structures – such as the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice – to capture the energy and imagination of students driving transformation; we have created many opportunities for students to study and travel on this and other continents to enable cross-cultural learning; we have established formal and informal opportunities to dialogue about difficult issues on and off campus between students and their leaders; and we crafted new curricula to enable teaching and learning on the big questions of our times.

But this is clearly not enough, and so I have decided on the following immediate next steps:
  1. We will meet for several hours next week to think about how we can deepen the transformation of our university after this terrible incident.

  2. We will arrange a University Assembly on the events of the past week so that we speak with one voice on human wrongs and to re-commit to human rights and we will continue with open forum discussions during the months to come.

  3. We will review the entire spectrum of programmes, from orientation to residence life to the undergraduate curriculum, to determine how effective our interventions really are in reaching all students with respect to basic issues of human rights.

  4. We will review our media and communications strategy to determine how far and deep our messages on human rights travel across all sectors of the university community. In this regard it is important that the campus be blanketed on a regular basis with our condemnation of human wrongs and our commitment to human rights.

  5. We will commission the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice to review the events of the past week and make recommendations on how we can improve the campus environment so that all students are protected from harm inside residences, classrooms and in open spaces of the campus.

  6. We will take the questions raised during this week into the academic community and to the general staff of the university so that all personnel also engage with our own roles and responsibilities with respect to campus transformations.

  7. We undertake to make annual report-backs on transformation to all stakeholders in public forums so that students and staff and external communities can track the progress of the university on matters of human rights on campus.

I wish to thank my staff for acting firmly as soon as this tragic event came to our attention. We worked through the night to find and identify the perpetrators. We traced the two students and immediately handed them to the police. They were expelled. And throughout this process we offered counselling and support to the victim of this violent act.

The two former students were expelled and will now face justice in the criminal courts. It is hoped that in the course of time they will come to their senses and seek restoration and reconciliation with the student they so callously harmed. They are not part of the university community anymore.

That is the kind of university we are.

Jonathan D Jansen
Vice-Chancellor and Rector
University of the Free State
20 February 2014

 
Note: The use of the word ‘campus’ refers to all three campuses of the UFS, namely the Bloemfontein Campus, South Campus and Qwaqwa Campus.

 

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