Engaging students and campus community in sustainability activities in a major canadian university

Abstract

Higher education institutions (HEI) have the potential to engage local and global communities in transformative learning for sustainable principles and practices. However, transforming a university campus into a model of sustainable development and best practice is a challenging task. It is only possible by engaging students, faculty, staff, and the campus community, as well as local and global partners. During the last decade Canadian universities have ramped up their efforts in order to support community engagement and partnerships. They aim to connect their research and innovation capacity with the policy and implementation challenges of partner organizations. The University of British Columbia (UBC) has actively pursued sustainability goals and targets for over twenty years. By establishing the University Sustainability Initiative (USI), UBC went a step further than other Canadian universities. The paper presents an overview of the evolution of the university’s sustainability strategy and focuses on sustainability-related developments within the last decade. It discusses five on-campus and off-campus engagement programs that contribute to UBC’s sustainability goals: the SEEDS program, Sustainability Ambassadors, “UBC Reads Sustainability”, Student Sustainability Council, and Sustainability-in-Residence, the Greenest City Scholars at the Point Grey campus in Vancouver, Canada. These programs exemplify joint efforts for promoting sustainable behaviors and practices that contribute to a net-positive campus and promote human and ecological wellbeing. Developments and findings discussed in the paper could be of value for many HEI interested in successful ways to engage students, staff, faculty, and the broader community in the practice of sustainability.