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McGill University 2006 Campus Sustainability Achievement Award Application

Category

Four-year and graduate institutions over 10,000 student FTE

Contact

Kathleen Ng
Environmental Officer
McGill University
Montreal, QC
(514)398-6247
kathleen.ng@mcgill.ca

Governance & Administration

Preamble. The University’s environmental policies and associated strategy for action were approved by Senate in 2001 and 2002 respectively. The University created an Environmental Officer position in late 2002, and an incumbent has been in office since recruited in February 2003. Environmental projects at McGill University are coordinated under the umbrella of the Sub-Committee on Environment (SCE), a working group of the Senate Committee on Physical Development. Through its monthly meetings, the SCE provides a forum for all members of the McGill community to participate in a multistakeholder dialogue to advance projects on all fronts of the sustainability movement on campus.

Policy. Initiated by students and supported by the SCE, a paper use policy that encouraged sustainable purchasing and use of paper was approved by the Board of Governors in 2005. This bolstered the University’s existent environmental policy and principles. Moreover, a proposed amendment to include principles of sustainable building practices in the existing environmental policy was approved in January 2006. In March 2006, the Environmental Officer was called before Senate to provide University senators with a status report about initiatives to date and what steps were to be taken in the future.

Master Plan. The University embarked on development of a master plan and involved the environmentally-minded community – staff, students and faculty alike – by public consultations both a priori and throughout. The University Environmental Officer is an invited guest to all meetings of the Master Plan Task Force and privy to participate in discussion of many of the issues backstage. As such, the Master Plan’s Guiding Principles specifically include clauses towards sustainable development, including aspects from circulation and transportation to building design and construction.

Organizational memberships. In 2005, McGill became an institutional member of Reseau environnement, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement of science, promotion of expertise and support of environmental activities. McGill is also actively represented at the CREPUQ (Conférence des recteurs et principaux des universités québecois –i.e. association of Quebec universities).

Other institutional commitments to sustainability. The University has publicly supported the proposed sustainable development plans of the province of Quebec and the city of Montreal; indeed, for the latter, the University committed to five actions on various issues as a municipal partner. McGill had also expressed support for sustainable transportation and development in briefs regarding the municipal master plan and transportation plan respectively.

Operations

Energy. The University invested more than $6M in infrastructure to reduce energy consumption by replacing chillers, steam traps, and replacement/insulation of piping (steam, hot/cold water) in tunnels and mechanical rooms. Despite the complexity of the project due to factors such as the age of (heritage) buildings and the requirement of electrical system upgrade to accommodate the new equipment, the efficiency of the new equipment reduced energy consumption and heat loss while increasing output capacity.

In parallel with infrastructure upgrades, education is an integral part of energy efficiency. As such, the University regularly distributes information about how building occupants can reduce energy consumption without sacrificing comfort or operating capacity. McGill also sponsored an inter-residence competition, with prizes (trophies and party) going to the residence with the greatest proportional reduction in energy consumption compared to a previously established baseline.

Building. McGill’s newest research building (currently undergoing construction) would be targeting LEED Silver. In addition, senior administration is committed to a comprehensive review of funding, construction, operations, use of its facilities and infrastructure to reconcile the University’s mission with commitment to sustainable building practices and its environmental policy.

Food and Dining. Dining services providers have been participating in a student-led pilot composting project over the past year. In the longer term, the request for proposals for a University dining services provider has been in development over the last year, and would include requirements for such items as reduced packaging, fair trade/organic goods where available, in addition to the usual commitments to quality, nutrition and client needs.

Parking and transportation. McGill is a partner in the allégo transportation demand management project to discourage commute via single-occupancy vehicles in favor of alternative transportation methods. In this light, the University decided not to add more parking spaces despite the addition of new buildings.

Waste. In addition to rolling out a battery and e-waste collection system, the University launched the Clean and Green program in an effort to recuperate space by encouraging building occupants to dispose of their superfluous equipment and furniture in an environmentally friendly manner. The campaign in 2005 resulted in approximately 55 metric tons of material being collected, of which 87% was recycled or re-used. Purchasing developed and launched an internal auction system (similar to eBay) for departments to redistribute their assets, with bids open to students after the first week.

Paper use. McGill Printing Services has long printed course material recto verso; however, since adoption of the University paper use policy, all course material and exam booklets printed by Printing Services (approximately 20M sheets p.a.) is printed on EcoLogo certified paper. EcoLogo paper is now used on all public University photocopy machines. Printing Services worked with student groups to promote the paper use policy and practices by design and installation of posters and signs in appropriate areas.

The University began providing employees with the option of paperless pay stubs in October 2005. Students were sent electronic invoices in lieu of paper copies – this saved approximately 15,000 sheets of paper (data excludes envelopes) monthly, and anticipated annual savings are $65K-100K (including printing and mailing costs).

Curriculum & Research

Preamble. McGill University’s Faculties of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Arts, and Science pooled their resources to create the School of Environment in 2002. The Sub-Committee on Environment continues to work with the School of Environment to provide students with opportunities to advance their studies by conducting research that could be of practical use to University operations. For example, one sponsored student research project examined the feasibility of implementing socially responsible investment principles in the University pension plan in 2005. Pension administrators are now working on providing an SRI option to plan members. A 2004 student project concerning an ecosystem assessment of campus land use was used in the master plan development activity (2005).

The Brace Centre for Water Resources Management brings together staff from several McGill faculties, to undertake research, teaching, specialized training, and policy and strategic studies in water resources management, both in Canada and internationally.

McGill researchers also work as part of the ArcticNet research consortium that evaluates the impact of climate change on northern communities. With funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), ArcticNet is developing models to predict the amount of erosion and better understand the impact of climate change on northern people.

New degree programme. McGill University's Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences is launching a new M.Sc. in Environmental Assessment.  This one-year, non-thesis program, offered by the Department of Natural Resource Sciences, is an initiative of the McGill-UNEP Environmental Assessment Collaborating Centre.

The Global Environmental and Climate Change Centre (GEC3) is a new cross-disciplinary, multi-university research centre bringing together more than 40 researchers from five Quebec universities to study processes, modelling and impact of environmental and climate change. The GEC3’s mission is to:

• To promote an outstanding research program at all levels focusing on the integration among physical, biological and chemical processes that regulate the climate system, and their socio-economic impact.
• To facilitate scientific cooperation among a cross-disciplinary group of Québec researchers in climate and global change science and impact assessment, and to promote Québec research at the national and international levels.
• To assume a lead role in global change issues and to provide input to the academic and public debate on environmental and climate change in Québec, Canada and internationally.

Obviously, it is impossible to describe the breadth of major research initiatives with sustainability as a central focus in only 500 words. The community was treated to a sampler of such research in the spring issue of Headway (a McGill publication with focus on research, discovery and innovation on campus).

Community Service and Outreach

Over the past two years, the University has held a variety of events for outreach to both its internal and external community.

• It was the first Quebec university to participate in International Car Free Day (as of 2004), coordinating street fairs with students while making arrangements for street closures with municipal/appropriate authorities. This has now become an annual event, with our downtown campus closed to vehicular traffic in favor of sustainability-themed kiosks and student activities.
• 2005 saw many events, including but not limited to
• the launch of the Lorne Trottier Public Science Symposium Series, held just prior to the UN Conference on the Climate Change Convention. Sponsored by Lorne Trottier, (B.Eng.’70, M. Eng 73), president of Matrox Electronic Systems Ltd., the inaugural symposium, “Climate Change and Energy”, offered the general public the opportunity to hear about the key issues at stake and to debate proposed solutions;
• A symposium on water, agriculture and climate was held November 09, 2005 by the Brace Centre to present research on climate and its effect on water for agriculture and how a changing climate might alter agriculture in Canada;
• The Pan-American Green Chemistry Summer School;
• A community clean-up, involving meeting citizens in the Milton-Parc community (the McGill Ghetto) so as to hear their perspective on how students affect their neighbourhood. The outreach effort was an opportunity to publicize the many ways in which McGill students contribute to civic life, and to encourage new students to participate in the community around them.
• The 2006 School of Environment Public Lecture featured Bruce Mau’s presentation “The Future of Environmental Design”.
• In the winter semester of 2006, the University launched a “Get Caught Recycling” week. By encouraging a grassroots recycling movement and encouraging students to recycle by this innovative viral marketing campaign, a significant increase in student awareness and consequent decrease in contamination of the campus recycling system was seen.
• The Sub-Committee on Environment continued to hold its annual Rethink conference (now in its fifth year), inviting all members of the McGill community to learn about the latest environmental projects on campus and to provide feedback about the next year’s priorities.

The University made a concerted effort to ‘green’ a major international francophone research conference (Acfas): with 6,500 attendees expected, the potential impact would be significant. Collateral benefits included sensitization of suppliers: e.g. accommodations providers were asked to complete a questionnaire about environmental practices at their establishments. The manager of one institution indicated that while very few of the practices were currently in place, the institution pledged to fulfill every requirement by the time of the conference and would be aiming towards certification by GreenLeaf or some other entity.

The University routinely sends representatives to a variety of sustainability conferences, such as “The EcoDevelopment of Educational Institutions of Quebec” and Americana (an international environmental technology trade show and conference). In 2005, the University sponsored a student as well as staff to attend the Greening of the Campus conference at Ball State University. As well, the University was represented at the UNFCCC COP-MOP held in Montreal.

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