A sustainable campus: The Sydney Declaration on interspecies sustainability

Abstract

Under the remit of an expanded definition of sustainability – one that acknowledges animal agriculture as a key carbon intensive industry, and one that includes interspecies ethics as an integral part of social justice – institutions such as Universities can and should play a role in supporting a wider agenda for sustainable food practices on campus. By drawing out clear connections between sustainability objectives on campus and the shift away from animal based products, the objective of this article is to advocate for a more consistent understanding and implementation of sustainability measures as championed by university campuses at large. We will draw out clear connections between sustainability objectives on campus and the shift away from animal based products. Overall, our arguments are contextualised within broader debates on the relationship between sustainability, social justice and interspecies ethics. We envisage that such discussion will contribute to an enriched, more robust sense of sustainability—one in which food justice refers not only to justice for human consumers and producers of food and the land used by them, but also to justice for the nonhuman animals considered as potential sources of food themselves.