Durham College
PRE-2: Points of Distinction

To quote the The Globe and Mail annual "Canada's Top 100" recognition page for Durham College:
Sustainability is a way of life at Durham College
Doug Crossman’s job is one that is always evolving. As director of facilities management at Durham College of Applied Arts and Technology, Crossman oversees the retrofits of the college’s buildings at its campuses in Oshawa and Whitby, Ont., many of which date back to the 1970s. “Our commitment to sustainability has certainly grown over the last 15 years,” he says.

On the more basic level, that has meant installing bottle fillers across both campuses to reduce the use of plastic; installing low-flow water systems in bathrooms; changing lights on campus to LED; and installing charging stations for electric vehicles.

Horticulture and food and farming programs at the Whitby campus focus on sustainable farming, which includes a vertical farm in a shipping container that produces 700 heads of leafy greens weekly and uses 90 per cent less water than traditional farming methods.

Durham College is also developing an organic regeneration system, which will produce waste compost for use in the college’s agricultural growing fields – “field to fork and back to field again,” as Alan Dunn, associate vice-president of facilities and ancillary services, notes.

In Oshawa, the Centre for Collaborative Education – a certified gold LEED building – was built to replace a legacy facility on that campus. When the old building was demolished, Dunn explains, it left the college with a vacant site, which was replaced with a landscaped quad. Beneath that is a geothermal field – the college’s third – which supplies heated and chilled fluids for HVAC systems in one of the main buildings.

“Our geothermal field at the Oshawa campus was a significant project that has taken us most of the way towards our 2030 greenhouse gas emission reduction goals,” says Crossman.

The campus community can observe the geothermal system in use at the Energy Innovation Centre. “This system is mostly buried underground,” says Dunn. “But there are significant pumping and monitoring systems that we’ve put into what might have been just a traditional pumphouse, and created an exhibit-like space with audio and video so students can learn how the system works.”

Over the next couple of years, the college will introduce a significant battery energy storage system – BESS for short. Designed to work in conjunction with the local utility, BESS will allow the college to draw on it when the demand on the electric grid system is at its peak and recharge when demand on the grid is low.

Another initiative is a combined heat and power facility (CHP) at the Whitby campus. “It’s a gas turbine engine that allows us to provide both electricity and heat,” Dunn explains. “In the winter, it’s an additional heat source for the campus buildings and in the summer, it’s primarily providing electricity, again, taking some load off the electrical grid.”

Another benefit of the geothermal fields, the CHP and BESS is the future potential for islanding the campus. “In the event of a significant outage, like an ice storm, they assist us in keeping some of the campus up and running,” Dunn says.

Any new project Durham College undertakes – from heating to plumbing to building construction – is as efficient as possible. “We take sustainability very seriously,” says Dunn. “It’s important for students and our employees as well, to be contributing not just to Canada’s stated goal, but globally.”

And that means Crossman still has a long list of things that need to be done. “By the time we upgrade the older systems, there will be new advanced technology to implement across the college,” he says. “It’s exciting knowing that this job is making a difference, and that the possibilities for sustainability are endless.”

This article appeared in the magazine announcing this year's Canada's Greenest Employers winners, published April 20, 2022 in The Globe and Mail. This article was prepared with the financial support of the employer, which reviewed but did not write its contents.

Durham College is situated on the traditional lands of the First Peoples of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation. These lands are covered under the Williams Treaties and rest within the traditional territory of the Anishinaabeg. We offer our gratitude to the Indigenous Peoples who care for and, through the treaty process, share the lands on which we live, learn, teach and prosper today.

Durham College’s First Peoples Indigenous Centre utilizes a holistic approach to supporting Indigenous students through traditional teachings of the medicine wheel which focuses on a student’s physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being.

The Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at Durham College promotes respect, and maintains and advocates for an inclusive campus for all employees and students regardless of race, gender, age, religion, gender identity or expressions, marital or family status, ethnic background, socio-economic class, ability or sexual orientation.

We offer extensive programming and support to ensure that all employees and students on campus feel welcomed and supported.

Durham College (DC) is proud to share that President Don Lovisa has signed the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Accord, joining more than 250 educational institutions internationally in fighting global injustice and committing to a central and transformational role in achieving the United Nation’s SDGs by 2030.

“By signing this accord, Durham College is supporting the advancement of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals; taking meaningful action within our own institution and drawing on our strengths in collaboration and innovation to help transform our local and global community,” said Lovisa.

As part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015, the 17 SDGs are an urgent call for action by all countries – developed and developing – to form a global partnership to achieve these goals. The SDGs recognize that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.

The SDG Accord was created to inspire, celebrate and advance the critical role that education has in progressing the SDGs and highlight the benefits they bring to governments, businesses and wider society. It has currently been signed by 255 educational institutions, 53 student unions, 221 support organizations, and 1671 individuals across the post-secondary sector around the world.

As a member of the accord, DC will collaborate with other signatory learning institutions and annually share the college’s progress with our campus community, and with sector SDG reporting metrics presented at the annual UN High Level Political Forum. The college will also continue to recognize the indivisible and interconnected nature of the SDGs by focusing its initiatives on the Accord’s universal set of goals – people, prosperity, the planet, partnership and peace.