| Overall Rating | Silver |
|---|---|
| Overall Score | 60.39 |
| Liaison | Christina Olsen |
| Submission Date | March 30, 2021 |
British Columbia Institute of Technology
PA-1: Sustainability Coordination
| Status | Score | Responsible Party |
|---|---|---|
|
1.00 / 1.00 |
Does the institution have at least one sustainability committee?:
The charter or mission statement of the committee(s) or a brief description of each committee's purview and activities:
The BCIT Green Team was launched in 2007 by three dedicated employees. The team is led by academic and non-academic staff volunteers representing schools and departments across the Institute who engage faculty and staff in sustainability practices and environmental stewardship at BCIT.
The Vision: Employees inspiring change from the ground up.
The Mission: To reduce the institute’s ecological footprint by engaging BCIT employees through sustainability initiatives that create awareness, participation, and behaviour change.
Members of each committee, including affiliations and role:
Academic Staff:
Deirdre Lynch, Faculty Instructor, Chemical and Environmental Technology
Non-academic Staff:
Alison Griffin, Liaison Librarian, Renewable Resources & Business Collections Coordinator
Bardia Khaledi, Document Specialist, Learning & Teaching Centre
Bonnie Christensen, Administrative Assistant, School of Construction and the Environment
Christine Pinkham, Project Manager, AASHE STARS, Institute Sustainability
Colin Chan, Energy and Emissions Manager, Facilities & Campus Development
Cynthia van Ginkel, Business Development Manager, School of Computing and Academic Studies
Darla Williscroft, Project Liaison Officer, BCIT Student Association
David Pereira, Manager, VP Academic Office
Jessica Stevenson, Administrative Assistant, Safety, Safety, Security and Emergency Management
Joanne Turnbull, Manager of Operations, Facilities & Campus Development
Joe Boyd, Research Liaison, Applied Research Liaison Office
Leesa Watt, Program Assistant, School of Computing and Academic Studies
Marita Luk, Business Development Manager, School of Construction and the Environment
Mirabelle Rohatgi, Graphic Designer, Creative Services, Marketing & Communications
Samantha Garofalo, Operations Assistant, Safety, Security and Emergency Management
Sarah Campbell, Manager, Sustainability Programing, School of Construction and the Environment
Yvonne Hopkins, Intermediate Program Analyst, Information Technology Services
Does the institution have at least one sustainability office that includes more than 1 full-time equivalent employee?:
A brief description of each sustainability office:
At BCIT we define sustainability as “enabling people to lead socially just lives within ecological limits.” The Office of Institute Sustainability is responsible for broad sustainability coordination for the entire institution. Our commitment to sustainability encompasses everything from advancing the state of practice through education and research, to improving the efficiency of campus operations, to engaging the community across the Institute:
- Within BCIT’s six schools and our Applied Research division, we are pushing the envelope and bringing concepts of sustainability into the classroom.
- From Food Services to Waste Management; from Financial Services to IT Services and everything in between, we are working with our partners to identify existing sustainability initiatives as well as help identify areas of opportunities.
- Engaging the BCIT community through highly effective campaigns and projects that highlight our personal contributions to sustainability. The BCIT community includes: students, faculty, staff, our neighbours, and industry partners – next door and around the world. Together we aim to contribute to the health and well being of our community, the Institute, and the many people and places that we affect.
Full-time equivalent of people employed in the sustainability office(s):
Does the institution have at least one sustainability officer?:
Name and title of each sustainability officer:
Does the institution have a mechanism for broad sustainability coordination for the entire institution?:
A brief description of the activities and substantive accomplishments of the institution-wide coordinating body or officer during the previous three years:
The Office of Institute Sustainability is responsible for broad sustainability coordination for the entire institution.
In 2020 BCIT’s first Sustainability Vision (https://www.bcit.ca/sustainability-vision/) was launched. The Office of Institute Sustainability embarked on an intensive process to ask for community views on BCIT’s objectives, role, and priorities in addressing the challenges of sustainability. This series of conversations, which engaged close to 800 individuals across all of BCIT campuses, began in the spring of 2019. Informed by a legacy of community participation and grounded in BCIT’s Policy 1010 on Economic, Social, and Environmental Sustainability, the development of the Vision integrated the contemporary ideas and priorities of our community. It charts an exciting but complex journey for the Institute. It articulates intent, areas of focus, and Institute accountabilities. Specific actions will be identified, and progress tracked, as we move forward in implementation.
BCIT hosted the 2019 Ecocity World Summit in collaboration with the City of Vancouver and Tourism Vancouver at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The Ecocity Summit series (https://ecocity-summit.com), held every two years since 1990, has developed into one of the most globally significant forums for addressing the complex challenges facing humanity in a rapidly urbanising world. Over 1000 thought-leaders, decision makers, sustainable business owners, and green researchers from over 30 countries came together for conversation, debate, and innovation based on the theme “Socially Just and Sustainable Cities”. One of the major objectives of the conference was to officially confirm the International Ecocity Standards (https://ecocitystandards.org) which were developed through a decade-long partnership between Ecocity Builders (https://ecocitybuilders.org) and BCIT School of Construction and the Environment.
The world’s first Centre for Ecocities (https://commons.bcit.ca/ecocitycentre) was launched at the 2019 Ecocity World Summit. The Centre will anchor the global leadership of BCIT in the restructuring of cities to reduce their carbon and ecological footprints while simultaneously regenerating natural habitat. It will support the evolution of ecocities worldwide. It will support research and provide the tools, metrics, expert planning and policy advice, training and other services that cities and their partners need to become genuine ecocities.
In partnership with Indigenous Initiatives and Partnerships and the Faculty and Staff Association, the Office hosted a series of Diversity Circles "lunch conversations". Each conversation brought a small group of eight people together from different areas of the Institute, to share a meal and ideas. The goal was to discuss building a culture of Sustainability at BCIT. The rationale for inviting eight people from the different areas of BCIT comes from our Diversity Circles framework: http://www.diversitycircles.com/framework/. A community celebration was held to bring together participants and the community to share ideas and learn from knowledge keepers as we move towards a sustainable BCIT and a sustainable world.
Kory Wilson, Executive Director Indigenous Initiatives and Partnerships, and Dr. Jennie Moore, Director Institute Sustainability, delivered a presentation at the 2020 AASHE Global Conference on “Leading with Social Justice to Advance Sustainability: Learning from Indigenization”.
Sustainability reporting using frameworks for higher education institutions was initiated in 2018 with BCIT’s first submission to the Universitas Indonesia GreenMetric. The third reporting cycle was completed in 2020. This is BCIT’s first AASHE STARS submission.
In 2020, the Office supported BCIT and BCIT Student Association operated Food Services with the elimination of plastic cutlery. The switch to plant-fibre based cutlery was a significant change. The overall intention is to support people to switch from a reliance on single-use items, towards reusable implements.
Job title of the sustainability officer position:
Job description for the sustainability officer position:
Job description for the sustainability officer position:
Job title of the sustainability officer position (2nd position):
Job description for the sustainability officer position (2nd position):
Job description for the sustainability officer position (2nd position):
Job title of the sustainability officer position (3rd position):
Job description for the sustainability officer position (3rd position):
Job description for the sustainability officer position (3rd position):
Website URL where information about the institution’s sustainability coordination 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.