Social Engagements

Social Engagement

Green Impact Initiatives

Message from Br. Bernard Oca, FSC, DLSU President

The Launching of the Green Impact Initiatives, 3 December 2021

The recently concluded COP 26 (Conference of the Parties to UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) at Glasgow showed an inadequacy of will and commitment on the part of the world leaders to strive towards the ambitious goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees in accordance with that of the Paris Agreement (COP21, 2015). One such symptom is their failure to establish an immediate concerted forward action to realistically cut down on carbon emissions and to make substantial reparations for vulnerable communities who have suffered from severe climate change impacts.

Such inadequacy indicates that institutions like De La Salle University need to redouble our efforts on ecological education and spiritual formation. Once again, we affirm our commitment to DLSU Environmental Sustainability Policy (2013) and its three main agendas, i.e., foreground environmental education, fund sustainability research, and fuel Lasallian ecological spirituality; cultivate greener campuses and sustainable facilities; and implement social engagement activities that offer solutions and alleviating alternatives to communities affected by climate change impacts.

We need to raise generations and generations of intelligent, responsible, and compassionate ecological citizens. Our curricula and research should incorporate, as directed by the Laudato Si’ “a critique of the ‘myths’ of a modernity grounded in a utilitarian mindset (individualism, unlimited progress, competition, consumerism, the unregulated market)” (210). We need to design improved mobilization programs that seek to attain climate solutions, even if on a small-scale level. We must work together to halve the carbon emissions in our own campuses by 2030 (DLSU’s Project Carbon Neutral), as we pledge to and participate in the Universities and Colleges of the World Race to Zero. We shall consciously care for our common home with our daily exertions and endeavor to “restore the various levels of ecological equilibrium, establishing harmony within ourselves, with others, with nature and other living creatures, and with God.” (Laudato Si’, 210). Our struggle to ensure the livability of the Planet Earth is a battle of the mind, the heart, and the spirit. We must tend well the Garden in which we have been made stewards.

We commend the College of Liberal Arts’ launching of its Green Impact Initiatives program, a passionate response to DLSU Environmental Sustainability Policy and the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG, 2015). We pray that this modest program, which aims to integrate environmental consciousness and climate actions into both curricular and extra-curricular activities, will transform our Lasallian learners into critical masses and innovative forces that work together with us towards the re-creation of a green and sustainable future.

These consolidated sets of actions shall delve into making our community engagement, research and teaching a truly Lasallian commitment toward fostering a greener and more sustainable environment through our communion in mission and zeal for nation-building highlighting our climate change actions. It shall be devoted into four action plans as CLA envisioned it. First, through a series of issue awareness campaigns by inviting notable and renown speakers, we shall engage our students to think of their own best solutions and innovation through mentorship and social research formation. There will be Green Sustainability Challenge that shall serve as platform to incubate these ideas deriving from best practices around the world or from novel and ingenious ideas of our young generation and to make it feasible and achievable within our own contexts and realities. Second, we shall identify partner communities such as ecotourism sites, agricultural cooperatives, protected forests, farmlands, and coastal villages of which indigenous people and local citizens partake and become lead agents. Third, we shall continue to dialogue and lobby with government agencies attached to climate change action and UN Sustainability Goals to influence policy formulations and program implementation with industry leaders, NGOs and cause-oriented groups. Lastly, we shall make these entire initiatives truly sustainable through the years regardless of change in the administration or leadership by placing short- and long-term goals and by enacting a covenant within our community in CLA and DLSU to make these happen.

Thus, I invite everyone to be part of this green movement. Be part of the DLSU Green Impact Initiatives.

May we resonate with the hopeful declaration of the Earth Charter (2000): “Let ours be a time remembered for the awakening of a new reverence for life, the firm resolve to achieve sustainability, the quickening of the struggle for justice and peace, and the joyful celebration of life.”

Thank you. Animo La Salle!

Official Statement of The Climate Reality Project Philippines on the Outcome of COP26, November 15, 2021
https://climatereality.ph/2021/11/15/statement-of-the-climate-reality-project-philippines-on-the-outcome-of-the-26th-conference-of-parties-to-the-unfccc/?fbclid=IwAR1_yNSIsEQNVaAHLV4YhrjxVNGr7puwFiCpzciqgyR5gQvox-98D2eMCqQ

See also UN Climate Change on COP26 outcome.
https://unfccc.int/conference/glasgow-climate-change-conference-october-november-2021

Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ of the Holy Father Francis on Care for Our Common Home (2015)
https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html

See Universities and Colleges Race to Zero by 2030, organized by UN Environment, The Alliance for Sustainability Leadership in Education (EAUC), and Second Nature. https://www.educationracetozero.org/home

Earth Charter (2000), www.earthcharter.org