| Overall Rating | Silver |
|---|---|
| Overall Score | 60.39 |
| Liaison | Christina Olsen |
| Submission Date | March 30, 2021 |
British Columbia Institute of Technology
EN-10: Community Partnerships
| Status | Score | Responsible Party |
|---|---|---|
|
3.00 / 3.00 |
Name of the institution’s formal community partnership to advance sustainability :
Does the institution provide financial or material support for the partnership? :
Which of the following best describes the partnership timeframe?:
Which of the following best describes the partnership?:
Are underrepresented groups and/or vulnerable populations engaged as equal partners? :
A brief description of the institution’s formal community partnership to advance sustainability:
CityStudio Vancouver was founded in 2011 to accelerate sustainability in higher education and provide students with direct opportunities to work in and with the city on urban challenges. It is an innovation hub that brings together city staff, students, faculty and community to co-create experimental projects that make Vancouver more sustainable, liveable, joyful, and inclusive.
Born in response to Vancouver’s plan to become the greenest city in the world by 2020, CityStudio was created with the support of founding partners, Simon Fraser University (SFU) and the City of Vancouver. Since then it has grown into a collaboration between the City of Vancouver, SFU, BCIT, University of British Columbia (UBC), Langara College, Emily Carr University of Art + Design (ECUAD) and the Native Education College (NEC).
BCIT is a key academic partner, supporter and funder. Their total participation and collaboration with CityStudio as of fall 2020 includes:
Students: 1,112
Projects: 185
Faculty: 55
Courses: 34
Each term BCIT matches a number of CityStudio projects with BCIT courses. Examples of sustainability related projects from the last three years include:
• Be Smart with Sharps. Guided by the City of Vancouver's Healthy City Strategy, students were asked to explore the issue of discarded sharps in public spaces, and provide recommendations for an effective Safe Sharp Disposal education campaign.
• Salvaged Materials Market. In order to foster Vancouver’s market for salvaged materials, secondary and qualitative research was conducted to gain an in-depth understanding of the current market and its potential to grow. This research was used to develop a two-year marketing campaign that can be implemented to educate consumers on salvaged materials and help change consumer preference to increase the uptake of salvaged materials in the local market.
• Restoration Plan for Everett Crowley Park (ECP). The City of Vancouver (CoV) has conducted restoration activities throughout ECP to re-establish a coastal forest ecosystem. One restored area exhibited dieback after trees were planted. To address this, students developed an experimental design to compare CoV’s usual restoration prescription versus an alternative prescription, one that will initiate the successional trajectory of a coastal forest consisting of a community of plant species suited to the future environmental conditions based on projected climatic changes for the region.
• Textile Recycling. The aim of this project was to establish the operational pathways for clothing providers in the City of Vancouver and identify knowledge gaps by interviewing and surveying clothing providers to understand their collection, sorting, distribution, and disposal processes. The students also identified the opportunities and challenges of each process and recommended areas that required further research.
Website URL: https://citystudiovancouver.com
Name of the institution’s formal community partnership to advance sustainability (2nd partnership):
Does the institution provide financial or material support for the partnership? (2nd partnership):
Which of the following best describes the partnership timeframe? (2nd partnership):
Which of the following best describes the partnership’s sustainability focus? (2nd partnership):
Are underrepresented groups and/or vulnerable populations engaged as equal partners? (2nd partnership):
A brief description of the institution’s formal community partnership to advance sustainability (2nd partnership):
The British Columbia Collaborative on Social Infrastructure (BCCSI) is comprised of four BC post-secondary institutions: BCIT, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver Island University and the University of Northern British Columbia and is supported by a grant from the McConnell Foundation.
The presidents of these four institutions entered into a collaboration agreement in June 2018. A small enabling group includes vice-presidents and strategic advisors and there are several dozen participants involved across the four areas of action, including faculty, procurement specialists, Indigenous leads and scholars, sustainability leads, and librarians. Areas that matter to students and communities and that help participating institutions address the calls of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission were prioritized.
Several social infrastructure projects across the four institutions will focus on the following action areas:
1. Green and sustainable campus and community building
2. Indigenous entrepreneurship and social finance
3. Social procurement
4. Library outreach and community scholar programs
The four institutions will also share practices and policies to encourage progress and to determine how initiatives can be scaled-up and enhanced. The institutions plan to create a community of practice that can be shared with other post-secondary institutions in BC and across Canada.
Name of the institution’s formal community partnership to advance sustainability (3rd partnership):
Does the institution provide financial or material support for the partnership? (3rd partnership):
Which of the following best describes the partnership timeframe? (3rd partnership):
Which of the following best describes the partnership? (3rd partnership):
Are underrepresented groups and/or vulnerable populations engaged as equal partners? (3rd partnership):
A brief description of the institution’s formal community partnership to advance sustainability (3rd partnership):
The BCIT Centre for Ecocities is working with ten municipalities in British Columbia (BC), Canada to assess their consumption based greenhouse gas emissions and ecological footprint. Output data will then be used to identify pathways to help the municipalities close their sustainability gap. The participating municipalities represent both large and small communities in urban and rural settings and together account for the majority of the BC population. The participating municipalities include:
Campbell River
Capital Regional District
City of North Vancouver
District of Saanich
Nelson
Powell River
Quesnel
Surrey
Vancouver
Victoria
The BCIT Centre for Ecocities assisted each municipality with data collection and processing, testing a new "ecoCity Footprint Tool." With preliminary testing of the online version of this tool complete, municipalities received their data and are now able to identify the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in their communities and work with citizens to take effective climate action.
One of the participating municipalities, the District of Saanich, won a silver award from the Planning Institute of British Columbia for their climate action plan that was developed with information generated from this program.
When updated, the ecoCity Footprint Tool will be available to all BC municipalities to create their own urban metabolism and ecological footprint assessments as well as territorial and consumption-based greenhouse gas emissions inventories.
The Lighter Footprint App, a complementary tool targeting citizen engagement, will also be available to help people in the municipal pilot communities to pinpoint changes in their own lives that will leverage maximum impact for achieving low carbon lifestyles aligned with climate stability goals and ecological carrying capacity.
A brief description of the institution’s other community partnerships to advance sustainability:
Website URL where information about the institution’s community partnerships to advance sustainability is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.