Happy Earth Day Everyday
The earth revolved around the sun once since the last time you received our newsletter. As we pause to recognize Earth Day, we are committed to keeping in touch more often going forward. Enjoy reading about a selection of the exciting sustainability related activities that are going on at UBC!
Celebrated every April 22, Earth Day is the largest, most celebrated environmental event worldwide.
- More than 6 million Canadians join 1 billion people in over 170 countries to celebrate Earth Day
- First launched as an environmental awareness event in the United States in 1970, Earth Day (April 22) is celebrated as the birth of the environmental movement
- In 1990, two million Canadians joined 200 million people in 141 nations in celebrating the first International Earth Day
- In many countries, the international event brought pressure on heads of state to take part in the UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro to address issues such as climate change and the world wide loss of species
UBC is developing a Sustainability Academic Strategy
Photo: Ayla Harker
UBC launched the Sustainability Academic Strategy (SAS) by hosting two Town Hall meetings at UBC Vancouver and UBC Okanagan in early April. The SAS aims to provide a unifying framework to help guide the UBC community in ongoing planning, decision making, resource allocation, and community building.
The SAS Town Halls attracted students, faculty, staff and community members who offered valuable ideas and input to the process. Comments from the town halls are being taken under consideration. Some examples of the high quality suggestions presented at the Town Hall include:
- The need to break down silos of knowledge and create incentives for faculty to engage in interdisciplinary teaching.
- The commitment to build stronger relationships with local communities and ensure a two-way exchange of information.
- The creation of measurable targets to ensure they are met by all departments.
The SAS working group, chaired by Dr. John Robinson. (Professor in the Institute of Resources, Environment and Sustainability) is consulting widely to develop a draft strategy by the fall of 2009.
We hope to continue to hear your ideas on issues and opportunities to integrate sustainability within teaching and learning, research and service, and operations and administration. We also invite you to help us explore and exemplify two cross-cutting themes – campus as a living lab and university as an agent of change.
Please visit the website to learn how you can be involved.
UBC’s Climate Action Plan
Photo: Javier Landaeta
The UBC Sustainability Office is developing a comprehensive Climate Acton Plan for UBC. The Plan will document measurable and achievable climate action strategies in seven areas that are the key sources of UBC’s greenhouse gas emissions (GHG).
In the past weeks we have received invaluable input into the plan from the UBC community in workshops and a town hall meeting. The final plan will be completed in June of this year. The next phase of public consultation will take place in June when the draft plan is open for review.
Thank you to the community for attending the initial events.
UBC Supply Management launches Sustainable Purchasing Policy
Photo: Gerry Frechette
Supply Management has established a new purchasing policy to increase sustainable practices on campus.
Victoria Wakefield, Manager Logistics/Sustainability in Supply Management states: “We are excited about the launch of this new policy. We are working with various campus units such as Food Services and Plant Operations to adopt the principles of leadership, social inclusivity, environmental stewardship, accountability and include ethical codes of conduct in procurement.”
If you want to find out more about this new policy please visit Supply Management.
Anneliese Schultz – “eco-Italian” professor
The ReThink award sponsored by the UBC student group Common Energy recognizes instructors across our campus for incorporating elements of sustainability into their courses and programs. The first, and March recipient of the ReThink award is Anneliese Schultz, an “eco-Italian” professor. Anneliese incorporates eco-Italian into all of her classes. As an example, she uses “green” vocabulary and verbs that relate to things such as energy conservation, recycling and local eating.
Common Energy gives out the ReThink award once a month. If you are aware of a professor that meets the criteria, please send an email to Common Energy.
goBeyond Program recieves Funding
goBEYOND, the BC student-led climate action project, received additional $50 000 in sponsorship from BC Hydro over the next two years, and $5 000 from the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions. This funding will allow goBEYOND to continue its climate action programming on 9 post secondary campuses across the province.
For more information on visit: goBEYOND
To get involved contact UBC’s goBEYOND coordinator Spencer Rasmussen
Make Sense of Energy Consumption
Kill-a-Watt meter. Photo: Flickr, CC
Have you ever wondered how much energy your appliances consume? Now you can easily find out. The UBC Library and the Sustainability Office have partnered to bring you the Kill-A-Watt meter. The Kill-a-Watt is a small hand-held device that plugs into an electricity socket, upon plugging your appliance into the meter the real-time energy consumption of that appliance is displayed. Armed with this knowledge you can figure out just how efficient that sleep mode is, and make choices to reduce your energy consumption. The meters are available for to UBC students, faculty and staff from the following library branches: Koerner, Iriving K Barber and Woodward. In the case of the Kill-a-Watt, knowledge is power saved!
www.sustain.ubc.ca/energy
