The Department of Urban and Regional Planning (DURP), Faculty of Built Environment (FAB), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Johor Bahru had its monthly seminar entitled “Mainstreaming Sustainability: From Concept into Action”, on the 28th of April 2016 (Thursday), 11.00 am at Seminar Room, B03, FAB. The seminar was presented by Dr. Irina Safitri Zen, a senior lecturer at the DURP.
Dr. Irina began the seminar by revisiting very briefly the emergence of sustainability, the basic concepts of sustainability, the seven common principles of sustainability, sustainable development and Malaysia’s commitment to sustainability. She also spoke on the scope of sustainability, how the scope has changed, the indicators of sustainability and sustainability science. According to Dr. Irina, there is a need to mainstream sustainability which essentially calls for the collaboration and integration of academia, industry, government and community. She also elaborated on the increasing importance of social equity and community participation and asserts that more action oriented and bottom up efforts are very much needed in order to attain sustainability.
Dr. Irina is widely recognised as an environmental management and sustainability expert and her areas of specialisation includes environmental studies and management, sustainable development and sustainability, sustainability assessment and research methodology, solid waste management and recycling behaviour, environmental management and policy, and campus sustainability. She is currently the head of the Sustainability Research Unit at Institut Sultan Iskandar (ISI), UTM and is an Associate Research Fellow at Centre for Innovative Planning and Development (CiPD), FAB, UTM. She is also a member of a number of select and strategic working groups in Malaysia and the Asia Pacific.
The seminar attended by students and academic staff of DURP ended at 1.15 pm.