On a weekly basis, I share on campus tours that UBC offers over 600 courses related to sustainability. I realized yesterday that I had only heard of one of those courses- sustainability marketing! Is 600 an impressive number? What are the other courses offered? I was interested in learning more about the different sustainability courses offered at UBC.

Luckily, there’s a website with a list!

Some of the courses on this list really surprised me! I didn’t know they were offered at UBC, and also didn’t know the subject had anything to do with sustainability. For example, CENS 307 Witches: Myth and Reality is an Arts course on the list. I found the syllabus for the class , and my best guess is that the class is about social sustainability, and perhaps issues with excluding women from social success?

One course that sounds extremely interesting that I saw when scrolling through the list is PLAN 331 The Just City in a Divided World. What an interesting course title! I think that “divided world” is a topic super relevant to sustainability, as I personally think that the world’s divisions are the opposite of a solution to sustainability issues.

I wonder if other universities in Canada have this many courses on sustainability? I couldn’t find a similar course list from the University of Toronto. However, I did find an Excel spreadsheet of courses related to sustainability offered over at UVic. It looks like they offer over 584 courses related to sustainability! And it’s a much smaller school- I was impressed by UVic! I didn’t find any courses as surprising as the UBC course on witches, but did see they have their business Investments class on the list (awesome to see more discussion about sustainable investments) and a course on Geocaching.

I think this is a great example of how individual definitions of sustainability can vary. I don’t immediately think of witches when someone says sustainability, but sustainability is such a huge concept that plays into so many elements of life, inside and beyond UBC.

While I’m on the subject of sustainability courses at UBC, and this being my last blog post, I wanted to share some thoughts about my experience in sustainability marketing and what I’ve learned in the course. Coming into the course, I was skeptical- I don’t often think of business as a sustainability solution, but instead, think of business as a contributing factor to the sustainability problem (socially, businesses exploit workers, environmentally, businesses create pollution, etc.) While I’m still pretty skeptical of business, I have definitely learned a bit more about how sustainability can be a tool in our journey towards a more sustainable future. Guest speakers like Joel Solomon shifted my perspective a bit- it was interesting to hear about his use of his resources, and how he decided what was important to him for his life.

I also wanted to share a few of my favorite take-away core concepts. I didn’t know much about the closed-loop concept before this course, and now I think about it all the time! I think it’s exciting that many businesses are moving towards considering the full lifecycle of a product, where it comes from and where it is headed after it has been purchased. I also really valued the course about collaborations and partnering for sustainability- I think my initial hesitancy towards businesses and sustainability are eased when I know NGOs, universities, or other organizations I trust a bit more are helping guide businesses. I really value collaboration and agree that we will only be able to tackle giant problems like sustainability when tons of folks are working together.

Overall, I feel extremely grateful to go to a business school where I’m able to take courses like Sustainability Marketing. I am excited that there are so many business students so passionate about making change. I also feel lucky that I got to learn so much about sustainability at UBC this semester! I’ll be sticking around and working at UBC after graduation, and I’m excited to share this sustainability information with others and work on improving on-campus sustainability through my role on campus as well.

Thanks for following along on my adventures!

Cheers,

Maddy

After hearing Joel Solomon speak in class about his passion about moving UBC towards divestment via his involvement on the Board of Governors, I wanted to learn more about divestment at UBC. I have heard a few of my friends talk about the issue, and I know I support divestment, but I don’t know a lot about where we’re at in the process of moving towards divestment, or how I can support the efforts as a UBC student.

So what is divestment? Divestment is basically shifting UBC’s investments away from fossil fuels (which currently make up 6% of the university’s investments). Students on campus have been fighting for divestment since 2013.

After doing a bit more research, I’ve learned a bit about how the university currently makes investments. After the Board of Governors considered a proposal for divestment in 2016, the board recommended that the university should create a Sustainable Future Fund.

The university did- so now UBC has two investment pools. One, the Sustainable Future Pool, invests in a way that lowers carbon emissions and avoids fossil fuel holdings. However, the sustainable fund is more volatile and smaller than the university’s main group of investments (in fact, the Ubyssey stated it’s only 1% of UBC’s endowment).

Recently, due to student activism, the AMS divested away from fossil fuels. And most students and faculty support divestment- with 76.9% of students agreeing that UBC should divest, and 61.9% of faculty echoing that opinion. 

I find it baffling that such an impressive, sustainable university that is leading the way on so many sustainability projects is still investing in funds that support fossil fuels. I think this is pretty hypocritical- if sustainability is really one of UBC’s key values, why isn’t that reflected in the way that the institution invests, especially when students and faculty members clearly support the divestment efforts?

It also makes financial sense to divest. An article on Financial Times says that sustainable investments outperform the market, particularly in the long term. In fact, the article says that 90% of academic studies that look at the relationship between sustainable investing and financial performance suggest the the responsible investing practices either have a positive or neutral impact on investment success.

I would love to go to a university that leads in sustainable practices in all of the possible ways to do so: through its buildings, its classes, its clubs, its policies, and its investments. I am still learning about divestment and am definitely not a finance student or whiz in the field, but it seems like it would simply make sense to move all investments towards social and environmental sustainability. I wish the university wasn’t so slow to make changes-I’m surprised that folks have been trying to get the university to divest since 2013 with only slight progress being made by the university since then. I am hopeful that getting awesome people on our Board of Governors, like Joel Solomon, will help shift the overall perspective of the board to be more favorable of the idea of divestment. That way, they can follow Joel’s investment ideas- invest in businesses with good values that do good work. Who knows- maybe UBC will have their own Stonyfield Yogurt story someday.

As a residence advisor, I often have the opportunity to host events for my community. After attending the UBC sustainability fair and chatting with so many different student groups about sustainability on campus, I realized I wanted to host my own sustainability fair for my residents! The purpose of the event was to increase awareness about on-campus sustainability initiatives, and connect residents that are passionate about sustainability to each other.

I was lucky to have some teammates helping and attending the program- here are some of my buddies at the event!

There were a few different components of the event. First, we invited different UBC sustainability groups to the event, including the following groups:

-UBC Zero Waste Squad,

-UBC Sustainability Ambassadors,

-Engineers Without Borders,

-Dive Into UBC,

-Sprouts, and

-Fly at Risk.

Each of the organizations set up a booth with more information about what they do. I’m excited to share a bit about each group! The UBC Zero Waste Squad is a group of students that attend UBC events and help with sorting waste. We’ve met the Sustainability Ambassadors and Engineers Without Borders before- they work on different projects at UBC (see previous posts for more info!) Dive Into UBC is a UBC arts and culture group that showcases and sells local artwork- it’s sustainable because the art couldn’t get more local! Everything they sell come from students at UBC. Sprouts is an on-campus organization that makes “local, organic, and fair-trade foods accessible to the UBC community”. The group delivers Sprouts Boxes (boxes of local veggies), and runs Sprouts and Seedlings (two awesome cafés on campus with cheap, healthy, veggie foods! Fly at Risk is actually a local tie company run by a Sauder alumni. The company is committed to zero waste production, and donates proceeds to the Clean Clothes Campaign (a socially sustainable organization that advocates for garment workers).

We also organized a mini “thrift store”- we collected residents’ old clothing items, and then gave them away for free at the event in order to promote a closed-loop cycle in residence- why buy something new when you can grab someone else’s older, lightly used, cute clothing item?

I actually saw one of my residents grab one of my old tank tops, and she told me she was going to wear it out over the weekend! It was a top I never wear, so I was very happy to see someone else excited about it.

I think this is the event I’m most proud of organizing through all of my work in Residence Life (and I’ve been in Residence Life for three years!) The whole event ran smoothly, looked good, and there were even plant-based, zero-waste snacks for folks to munch on. I think I also enjoyed the event because it meant something- the program was spreading awareness about sustainability initiatives on campus and celebrating the amazing people and their work at UBC. I am constantly blown away by the passionate folks working hard around me.

I am also super proud that I get to do work like this in Residence Life and at UBC- when I have an idea or something I’m passionate about- I just get to run with it and make it happen! That’s what happened with this event- I got to collaborate with other people passionate about sustainability, and bring a bit of the sustainability world into my world in residence.

Also, lastly, I was impressed by how well the “thrift store” worked out- and am SO EXCITED that UBC will be getting its own, permanent thrift store soon. I think this will be an amazing way to reduce waste and UBC and make clothes last just a bit longer. Plus- who doesn’t appreciate a good thrifting find? I know I’ll be stopping by the thrift store once it opens up.

Today I had the awesome opportunity to explore the CIRS building on campus (the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability). I walk by the building often, and am often curious about it. My twin sister, who studies architecture in Oregon, actually studied the CIRS building through her classes, so I knew it was pretty famous! I did a Green Building Tour with Paula, and got to learn more about what makes this building so special and sustainable.

We started in the atrium, and talked about some of the noticeable differences between CIRS and other on-campus buildings. One of the first differences I noticed was all of the natural light throughout the building. In order to use more natural light and reduce the building’s use of artificial light, giant windows (with two layers of glass to support insulation) fill one of the walls of CIRS. Speaking of windows- many of these windows have been painted in order to reduce bird collisions on campus (the second highest reason for bird deaths in the area, behind cats). A PHD student designed this as a solution to the major bird collision issue on campus (approximately 10,000 birds die each year at UBC from collisions with reflective surfaces!)

The wood in CIRS is also pretty cool- it’s called Glulam wood– which means it has been glued and laminated in order to ensure that it is structurally strong. This kind of wood is used in other buildings on campus- like Orchard Commons and Tallwood! Wood is also a local resource- there is so much of it in BC- so it makes sense that buildings at UBC prioritize the use of wood.

It takes less energy to produce wood than concrete, for example, and typically doesn’t need to travel as far as other materials that are typically used in building structures. Another cool thing to note is the wood on the ceilings- which is not structural, but is decorative in the space. This wood in the building is wood from trees that have been affected from the Pine Beetle- meaning they are from dryer trees that often contribute to summer fires in British Columbia. I didn’t know much about Pine Beetles so I looked them up- they have affected the health of more than 18.5 million hectares of BC forests and can’t be used as easily for structural wood pieces. What a yikes- I was surprised I hadn’t heard much about these beetles before.

Another cool thing you may notice about the atrium is the floor- the floor is made from a mix of rubber (reused from car tires) and recycled plastics. The floor is light to help reflect the natural lighting in the space (thanks to the plastics!) The mix of rubber and plastics also means that the floor is quiet as you move through it, and doesn’t create as much noise as it might otherwise. A photo of the floor is below! 

Next we got to head up to the green roof- where there are a few cool projects going on! There are pollinator homes for bees, butterflies, and bats made out of recycled materials (and designed by students in the school of architecture!) This pictured structure is actually made out of paper pulp from coffee cups.

I could probably go on for a while about all the fun facts Paula shared with me about the building- but the last one I’ll point out is the thing you may notice most often when you walk by- the vines outside the building! These vines cover most of the west-facing side of the building. These windows get a lot of light in the summer, and the vines act as a way to “curtain” the windows and provide shade in the summer. In the winter, they lose their leaves, which means the vines don’t prevent light from entering the building. The vines are Chocolate Vines (yum?) and were chosen because of how they climb quickly and change based on the season. I thought this was an amazing, thoughtful design element- and it makes so much sense. My main window in my room faces West, and it often gets so warm in the summer- I wish I had viney windows!

I think it’s incredible that CIRS and lots of other architecture superstar sustainability buildings are right here on UBC’s campus, and feel so grateful that I got to learn more about one I see often.

Big thanks to Paula for showing me around! Paula gives these tours often, and is studying Environmental Design at UBC- so hopefully someday soon she’ll be designing spaces and buildings as impressive as CIRS!