Concordia University
EN-3: Student Life

A) Sustainable Concordia (SC) is a student-governed nexus that engages students, staff, faculty, and administrators to work together in non-hierarchical, consensus based decision-making processes to address issues of sustainable development on campus. We are founded in the belief that our community stakeholders must communicate and work together to create viable solutions to sustainable development challenges on campus. Bringing the perspectives of each stakeholder group together in dialogue allows us to see the University as a system where solutions reach across sectors and departments.

B) The Sustainability Action Fund (SAF) is a student run fee levy group at Concordia University. The organization collects approximately $205,000 of revenues a year from undergraduate (25-cent-per-credit) and graduate ($1.25 per term) fee levies. The majority of funding goes to support projects to develop sustainable infrastructure, urban agriculture, community-building, and education surrounding environmental and community issues, with the long-term goal of inspiring and developing a culture of sustainability at Concordia University.

C) Concordia Food Coalition (CFC) is concerned about the economic, ecological, and social implications of the food system at Concordia University. The CFC brings together students, faculty and staff to promote and facilitate a transition to a more sustainable food system in collaboration with organizations at Concordia and beyond.

D) The Centre for Gender Advocacy is an independent, student-funded, Concordia University organization, mandated to promoting gender equality and empowerment particularly as it relates to marginalized communities. This mandate is achieved through ongoing programming, campaigns, resources, services, advocacy and a commitment to accessibility.

E)The Community-University Research Exchange (CURE)fosters collaborations between university students and grassroots community groups working for social change. Groups can submit research requests or project proposals and students can undertake those projects, often for class credit.

https://www.concordia.ca/about/sustainability/sustainability-initiatives/student-initiatives.html

A) The Concordia Greenhouse Project is a collectively run, consensus-based, non-profit organization. It uses the Henry H. Hall Building rooftop greenhouse as an all-organic space geared towards community, education and sustainable horticulture. The Greenhouse is a year-round green space that hosts workshops, projects and events raising awareness around food issues and alternatives to mainstream consumerism.

B) The City Farm School is an initiative of The Concordia Greenhouse to develop partnerships and expertise in urban agriculture on the island of Montréal. The aim is to promote a cultural shift towards more resilient communities able to meet the challenges posed by climate change by focusing on local food autonomy. With the support of Concordia University, The City Farm School (CFS) offers seminars, discussions, internship placements, volunteer opportunities and popular education style teach-ins on permaculture, organic crop planning, producing seedlings, mushroom cultivation, composting, pest management, organic plant nutrition, rain water harvesting, and other topics of great public interest, promoting a strong focus on experiential learning and the cultivation of a can-do spirit.

C) Le Campus Potager transforms unused space on Concordia’s University’s downtown campus into productive vegetable gardens. They make their organic produce available to make healthy, local food available at Pop-Up Market Stands

D) The Concordia Farmer's Market enables local farmers and vendors to bring their wares to this weekly farmer's market which encourages students and the community to think local when shopping for food, soaps, arts and crafts, and other locally-made goodies.

E) mind.heart.mouth is an ongoing project that started with a Master in Art student's research. The project transforms a section of the Loyola Campus grounds into a community garden. Aside from her research questions (discussed more in EN-8), the goals of the garden are to (a) make urban agriculture accessible to members of the Concordia community while encouraging regenerative behaviors on campus and in the broader community, and (b) fight food insecurity by teaching people of all ages how to grow their own food, and give them the space to do so. Anyone can sign up as a volunteer and can take home the food from the garden when they do. This garden is also linked with the LOY 350 internship course and with ANTH 384 Food & Sustainability and ANTH 471 Food & Social Change.

A) The Hive Café is a student-governed cafe with the aim to empower students by using a student-lead, non-profit, cooperative model all the while helping to inspire and cultivate an alternative food system at Concordia that is socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable.

Located both at the heart of Concordia University’s Loyola campus and Downtown campus, the Hive Café’s mission is to provide healthy, varied, affordable, organic, and locally produced food options, while highlighting sustainable practices, employing dignified working conditions for suppliers and worker-members alike, nurturing a community-run space, and fostering an alternative food system to the one currently dominated by corporate institutional providers.

The Hive Café Solidarity Cooperative adopted a non-profit cooperative economic model due to our shared desire for fostering a healthier and more sustainable food system, our passion for community-building, and our strong commitment to values such as;

Anti-racism
Anti-sexism
Queer positivity
Anti-poverty
Anti-oppression
Egalitarianism
Fair labour relations
Social, environmental, and economic sustainability.

B) HYDRO-FLORA researches sustainable methods of urban agriculture, and they are involved in creating artistic, innovative, and educational growing installations, designing interior vegetation decor and providing plant care services, teaching educational workshops, and conducting research and development in alternative growing practices and community wellness.

Launched in 2020, the Sustainable Investing Practicum (SIP) is the fruit of close collaboration between the John Molson School of Business and Manulife Investment Management (MIM). As a global leader in sustainable investing, MIM’s vision fit closely with Concordia’s aspiration to deliver a next-generation education that’s connected, transformative, and fit for the times. Under the supervision of the SIP director and senior members of MIM, the selected students will have the opportunity to manage a $2 million-dollar virtual equity fund allocated by MIM with the explicit mandate of integrating ESG factors into the stock selection process.

A) Transitions Conference: a full day conference on urban agriculture and alternative economics at Concordia University with inspiring food related keynote speakers, local-activists, and student groups. Ultimately we want to further inspire members of the Concordia community to transform our food system into into a fully localized, community-focused, and sustainable food system.

B) BiteMe!: a week-long orientation which seeks to introduce the Concordia community to the student food movement on campus, food justice and of course…food.Through free activities, a presentation, a Panel discussion, a keynote speech, and workshops, students will get a hands-on understanding of the urban food movement, the Concordia Food Coalition’s programs and food
resources on campus.

C) Su-stayin'-alive: a week of free events and gatherings in Montreal which seeks to carve a space to ignite and develop theoretical and practical skills for grassroots organizing.

D) Zero Waste Week: a yearly, free event series and pledge dedicated to rethinking and innovating the way we approach waste. Come learn about upcycling, repurposing, composting, recycling, as well as the environmental and social implications of unsustainable waste management systems

E) First Voices Week: a week of social, cultural, political and academic events about First Peoples on campus and across Canada

F) Sustainability across discplines: The Loyola College for Diversity and Sustainability collaborates with the Loyola Sustainability Research Centre each year to offer a multi-day conference dedicated to highlighting sustainability research from Concordia's student and faculty researchers. Students make up the primary audience for this event each year, and are the majority of speakers, panelists, and poster presenters as well!

Ethical Textiles: a book and a website aimed to help students from the Concordia University understand and interact with ethically sourced and produced textiles as well as creative reuse. A workshop series also offered to students from the Concordia Faculty of Fine Arts on these subjects.

Rap Battles for Social Justice: initially started as the Rap Battle Against the Tar Sands on March 28th, 2015, at La Vitrola. The main purpose of this event is to raise awareness about the social and ecological impacts of the tar sands and to mobilize new ambassadors in the hip hop and spoken word community in Montreal. Subsequent event throughout the past 4 years have focused on First Nation solidarity in climate justice, solidarity for migrant workers, and solidarity with POC facing police brutality.

Changing Landscapes: a sculptural interactive installation that educates the general public about the importance of sustainability and the implications of the human footprint on our ecosystem. The goal of this project is to create a realistic looking sculpture of dead bees living in a natural environment that visibly shows the audience the potential deadening effect on our landscape if we stay on our current unsustainable path.

Art Matters x CUCCR Artist Residency: Established in 2018, the Concordia University Centre for Creative Reuse (CUCCR)’s annual artists in residence are challenged to generate change in the culture of sustainability and reuse on Concordia’s campus and beyond. Consequently, all of the materials in this exhibition have been diverted from Concordia’s waste stream and upcycled into innovative artworks by the eight resident artists. The Art Matters x CUCCR Artist Residency aims to highlight how caring for our materials, ourselves and our community can help repair the harmful impacts of societal overconsumption.

Concordia Outdoors student club (student-governed):

The objectives of the group shall be as follows:
- To help bring students and other members of the Concordia community (“the Community”) to the outdoors year round;
- To introduce members of the Community to new outdoor recreational activities, and to provide a safe and welcoming environment for ‘beginner’ outdoors enthusiasts to encounter new activities;
- To make outdoor recreation more affordable for the Community by providing subsidized outings and courses, local discounts, affordable rental equipment, ridesharing resources, and Community knowledge-sharing;
- To familiarize the Community members with the landscape and geography of Quebec and surrounding regions;
- To promote respect for the environment among Community members, to ‘take nothing but photographs and leave nothing but footprints’;
- To connect like-minded Community members through meetings and social events

Waste Not Want Not: a collaboration between students, faculty, administration and staff based on three objectives:
(1) To reinstate local composting
(2) A wider distribution of compost bins on campus
(3) Education campaigns to instill responsible composting in our culture, including: (3a) Ensuring compost bins are available for events hosted by students and the university, and offering volunteers to help participants sort waste (3b) Holding a food festival once a semester, offering food to participants as they pass through and informing them of their nearest compost bins (3c) Running awareness campaigns on social media,

The Greenhouse: an all-organic space geared towards community, education and sustainable horticulture. Their Four Seasons Growing program aims to explore the possibilities of urban agriculture in a greenhouse year-round. This includes overcoming the challenges of limited space and sunlight in the winter, while taking advantage of the year-round access to sun and warmth that the greenhouse provides.

Season's Jars: aims to promote year-round consumption of local, organic and seasonal produce through public education and collective food preservation. Offers three workshop series per year: Summer, Fall, and Winder.

City Farm School: an integrative, focused urban agriculture program. The project responds to a growing interest in issues around food sovereignty and the practice of urban agriculture.

Concordia University's Centre for Creative Reuse (CUCCR): Offers work-study positions for various jobs including artist residencies, media development and communications, and project development and facilitation.

Waste Not Want Not Compost Collaboration: offers work-study positions to ambassadors to attend events for peer-to-peer education and waste sorting.

Office of Sustainability: The office frequently hosts student employment opportunities and paid internships. Most recently, this has included hiring a students for the roles of Sustainability Ambassadors Program coordinator, Sustainability Analyst, and Sustainable Communications Intern.

Zero Waste Concordia: Zero Waste Concordia in Facilities Management frequently works with student campaigns to integrate their activities into university operations; part-time student hires on the Zero Waste Concordia team have come from Food Cycle, and the Dish Project. They have also hired students as their social media coordinator.

Sustainability Ambassador Program: peer-to-peer education program which engages students to volunteer for many different sustainability initiatives such as Sustainable Events Advising, CUCCR depot animation, and many other workshop, events, and interventions.

Many sustainability-related students projects have been funded by the Sustainable Action Fund. A complete list of funded projects is available in the URL below.
https://www.safconcordia.ca/award-recipients/