Sustainability

Clean and green

Our living campus gardens are the first of its kind in Australasia, launched in 2008 with the goal of being more than a garden, more than a museum, more than a campus.

It set out to transform green space into a vibrant model of urban agriculture, sustainability education, and community connection. Beginning with the Permagrow garden at L Block, the initiative now spans seven edible gardens, thematic native plantings, and composting infrastructure aligned with surrounding teaching disciplines.

Student-led initiatives—such as the 2018 Pōpopo composting hub—help us divert over seven tonnes of organic waste annually, producing up to 14 cubic metres of compost.

The Living Campus offers workshops, signage, and public engagement, embedding sustainability visibly and practically across campus. After 15+ years of continuous development, it remains a powerful expression of our institutional vision.

Through our gardens, we hope to raise awareness and change attitudes towards how we use land by creating a visionary hub and offering educational tours and workshops to inform people about how this can be done.

Living campus garden includes the whole campus green space and shows elements of sustainable operations that guide us to care for our earth, care for people and share by modelling:

• Biodiversity
• Energy efficiency
• Food growing
• Plant material for cultural, artistic and therapeutic purposes
• Sustainable building materials
• Waste and water recycling

Take your pick or grow your own

Everything grown on our living garden is free for anyone in the community to come and pick. It's a great resource to lower your grocery bill. Take your pick of fresh leafy greens, fruit, veggies and herbs. Be sure to wash your produce before you eat it, after all, our living campus garden is it's own ecosystem.

You can even grow your own vegetables by adopting your own garden plot, and take advice from our living garden team.

Get in touch if you'd like to know more.

Living Campus staff

Kim Thomas 

Hospitality – Technique training restaurant

Tony Heptinstall