On Saturday 7 June, CCCU warmly welcomed more than one hundred esteemed alumni and guests back to campus for our 10th anniversary Alumni Gala Dinner. The evening marked a significant milestone, celebrating their enduring connection to the University and recognising the meaningful impact they’ve made since graduating.

The Alumni Gala Dinner is headlined by the Alumni Awards ceremony, in which our best and brightest nominees are recognised as winners in one of five categories. One such winner was Dr. Chris Hobbs (BSc (Hons) Biosciences, 2013, Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice, 2017, and MPhil/PhD Biological Sciences, 2019), in the Sustainability Champion category.

Dr. Hobbs conducted his PhD research on the shining ramshorn snail, uncovering that populations across Europe are both morphologically and genetically distinct and may actually comprise two separate species. This discovery has significantly influenced how conservation strategies are approached for aquatic ecosystems.

Following graduation, Chris relocated to Hawaii, where he dedicated his work to the study of endangered native land snails. He later became the first-ever Curator of Sustainability at the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, implementing impactful initiatives that reduced energy consumption and earned him the National Informal STEM Education Network Sustainability Fellowship. Chris continued his mission globally through the Local2030 Islands Network, supporting efforts to advance the UN Sustainable Development Goals in Small Island Developing States. He now leads his own consultancy, Sustainable Ideas, and remains actively engaged in the Honolulu community.

How did it feel to learn you’d been nominated for an Alumni Award?

Being nominated for the Sustainability Champion Alumni Award felt amazing! The nomination was not just a personal milestone, but a reflection of the incredible support, collaboration, and inspiration I received throughout my time at CCCU which allowed me to achieve so many of my personal and professional goals.

How does it feel to have won?

I’m honoured to receive this year’s Sustainability Champion Award. This recognition highlights the incredible work being done to embed sustainability into the heart of the cultural sector. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to collaborate with inspiring institutions and individuals who believe, as I do, that culture has the power to lead transformative environmental change. My successes have only been made possible through genuine collaboration and partnership with truly inspiring people across the globe.

Talk us through what you do; why is the work you do so important?

I run my own sustainability consultancy, Sustainable Ideas, supporting institutions across the globe in their endeavours to embed sustainability in their work in a meaningful and impactful way. We are currently experiencing a triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste, so it will take a huge culture change to combat this. I work a lot with cultural organizations (museums, historic houses, libraries etc.) to help them become more sustainable in their operations, and also talk to their communities and visitors about climate change and sustainability. This engagement, discussion, and coming together is key in the culture change we need to foster right now, for both us and future generations.

A key part of my work, which I learned through collaboration with the island leaders I worked alongside at the Local2030 Islands Network prior to starting my business, is that there is no such thing as “best practice” for sustainability and climate resilience. What works perfectly somewhere, may be doomed to failure somewhere else. Working to find what works in a specific space is an amazing challenge to take on, and one I love!

If anyone reading is thinking of working in your field, what advice would you give them?

Get involved in everything you can. Volunteering, internships, and other hands-on opportunities. Bring your passion to every opportunity and it will be noticed immediately, and will always be remembered, which opens more doors than anything else. Get involved in cleanups, biodiversity studies, lecture series, anything you can! If you see a gap where something is missing or needed, put together a case study of why it is important and present it to whoever is in charge. 

When I was a postdoc at the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum in Hawaii, I joined a sustainability meeting and noticed that we had no data to work with to better understand the sustainability needs of the museum. When I raised this, I was tasked with pulling that data together, and things snowballed from there! Soon enough I was Curator of Sustainability and had launched dashboards of all the data for the museum, and made it all publicly accessible. Within 2 years, using that data alongside staff initiatives and infrastructure upgrades, we had dropped energy use almost 20%! 

Simply turning up and asking the right questions helped start my career in this field, and then hard work and collaboration paid off with impactful change being made.

What is your fondest memory of your time at CCCU?

That is a super tough question, as there are so many to choose from! If I have to choose just one though, it would be my time on the practical ecology field course offered as part of my undergraduate course in Biosciences. This is a weeklong residential course that teaches sampling methods, data collection and analysis, and presenting said results, all in an intensive package. 

Run by the amazing lecturing staff of the Ecology program (Drs. Buckley, Harvey, and Vega), this course was truly my favourite of my studies as it really helped mimic some of the pressures of ecology fieldwork, and set me up with many of the skills I needed for my Ph.D. studies. I wholeheartedly recommend this course to any prospective and current student within the Biosciences and other degree paths that can take it. 

What are your goals for the future?

I find continuous personal and professional development a key element of success, and when an organization you work for encourages and fosters this, you’re in a good place! I’m currently working towards my LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Associate accreditation, a sustainable building accreditation program, as well as learning coding to develop low-cost dashboard options for clients. I’m looking to use these skills to support organizations track and be more transparent with their data, use that data to set and achieve goals, and ultimately use that progress to attract more funding to do the important work cultural organizations do every day!