The University of Western Ontario adds its name today to the list of Ontario universities commited to creating a sustainable environment.
Rob Esselment, Director, Government Relations and Operations at Western, joins university representatives at Queen’s Park for University Day.
The group will present a ‘Pledge from Executive Heads’ to the minister of Training, Colleges and Universities and the minister of Environment to find solutions to the challenges of environmental sustainability; to share knowledge about sustainability and climate change; and to incorporate principles of sustainability into operations wherever possible.
The Council of Ontario Universities is the driving force behind the commitment.
“I think the agreement is supposed to demonstrate, to not just government but the general public, that universities are committed to sustainability and incorporating it more and more into their practices,” says Esselment.
Like other public institutions, universities are joining a growing movement of ‘greening’ public policy.
From academics and research, to construction and technology use, universities are making environmentalism and sustainability a priority.
“It’s way overdue,” says Gordon McBean, Director of Policy Studies of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction.
“I think organizations respond to what they perceive to be the public interest and public pressure,” he says. “Institutions, like universities, need to be and should be seen to be leading in these sorts of things, not following.”
Universities can act as motivators within their cities, he adds. “I think we need to be thinking of the younger generation … let’s think about what we are doing now means for them.”
Tom Ewart, managing director of the Network for Business Sustainability based at the Richard Ivey School of Business, says grassroots initiatives sparked the push for more sustainable practices and public organizations are finally catching up.
“There was this grassroots approach, but there was also this macro-trend around the world, or at least in North America, that is just making these issues harder and harder to ignore,” says Ewart, adding this shift is “not for touchy-feely reasons, but for competitive reasons.”
Hurricane Katrina and the release of the Al Gore documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, became the global wakeup call on sustainability, he says.
All organizations, he says, share a growing recognition of two key factors: there are serious risks related to social and environmental sustainability issues (e.g. how climate change will change the way economies are structured) and the opportunities, such as shifting to a more sustainable way of thinking, differentiating from competitors and becoming more productive and efficient, which also have economic benefits.
Employees are pushing employers to change the way they conduct business; investors and non-government organizations are also pushing for reform.
Western falls about the middle of the pack among universities when it comes to sustainable campuses, says Ewart.
“I think we’ve been preoccupied, to an extent, with incremental change,” he explains, pointing to initiatives such as the light retrofitting program. “I got the sense there wasn’t much appetite to play out our responsibility as an institute of higher education that is really supposed to be pushing the boundaries and innovating.
“I want Western to be one of the leaders.”
He cites the University of British Columbia as setting the bar on sustainability. He notes Western does not yet have a point person or an office dedicated to the issue, nor is there an over-arching strategic plan on sustainability.
Still, Western has been adopting green business and planning practices, which have been helped by leadership among researchers and student groups.
For example, new construction on campus has shown a commitment to the LEED-certification (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), engineering research has paved the way to produce sustainable fuels, Hospitality Services has implemented a comprehensive waste management system, and the public information campaigns of EnviroWestern are already in line with such commitments.
“I think Western is doing a good job in moving in the right direction. We will have no choice, as momentum continues to build … that this will increasingly be the way everyone has to do business at all levels,” says Esselment.
“We will never get away from the success of sustainability being about individuals making individual decisions, but the changes to have corporate entities and institutions thinking of this, I think, was a necessary next step in making sustainability something that becomes endemic to the system.”
By making a strong public gesture on sustainability on behalf of all Ontario universities, the hope is the provincial government, as well as businesses and other sectors, will follow suit.
“It’s really hard to change, or impossible, unless there is an overarching policy framework that applies equally to everyone. That’s why we need high level policy change,” notes Ewart.