St. Lawrence College
PRE-2: Points of Distinction

One example of St. Lawrence College's commitment to LEED certification in its new buildings and major renovations, is the completed construction of the Student Life and Innovation Centre. This 80,000 sq ft new construction building is LEED Gold certified and has become a core part of the college's learning, engagement, and innovation activities. The building's construction and design includes a focus on building design and construction with a commitment to sustainability in energy, water, materials/resources used, innovation by design and indoor environmental quality. Some examples of the Centre’s design features include:

• A focus on energy efficiency where a 57% reduction in energy consumption, a 73% reduction in energy costs, and a 65% reduction in GHG emissions was achieved. This is accomplished through our geothermal energy exchange (which accounts for 100% of the building's cooling and a significant portion of heating), a heat recovery exhaust systems,  passive solar lighting, installation of LED lighting, efficient windows and envelope install, window blind control, and reflective roof membrane. 
  


• A focus on water efficiency, including a 45% reduction in potable water use through the incorporation of a cistern and low flow fixtures. 


• A focus on using the most responsible materials and resources when planning and building the Centre. This resulted in using 20% recycled content by cost and 35% regional content by cost. These materials were incorporated in the Centre’s roofing products, structural steel, drywall, and concrete blocks. In addition, the building's construction featured wood that is 100% sustainably harvested (certified by the Forest Stewardship Council) and the overall project's construction waste was over 90% diverted from landfill. 


• The Centre also targeted indoor environmental quality by creating an air quality plan during construction, using low to no volatile organic compounds in the paint, sealant, or carpets. This was successfully verified through on-site testing prior to occupancy. 


• Community engagement: Construction and design of the Centre also included the creation of the new Indigenous Centre to further incorporate Indigenous Ways of Knowing and Being into the college's space and programming. This extended to an outdoor Indigenous garden and interior canoe displays honoring both past and present Indigenous communities. 

Sustaiable Landscape Management Plan - Overview: 

The development of a Sustainable Landscape Management Plan was recognized as deliverable in the college’s Sustainability Plan. The Sustainability Plan was created to support the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals, targets set out by the AASHE's STARS reporting framework, and the SLC Strategic Plan. The Sustainability Plan guides our efforts across our campus communities and realizes a positive impact on our multi-year objectives. 

Through the Sustainable Landscape Management Plan, we are supporting both the objectives in the frameworks above, as well as the targets below which will guide our land management, stewardship, and decision-making at the college. These targets are:

·     To protect vulnerable and endangered species and remove invasive species.

·     Enhance biodiversity and ecological health to promote a sustainable environment for future generations.

·     Act as stewards of this land and manage grounds through a sustainable and thoughtful process and with the guidance and input from our Indigenous partners.

·     Create outdoor spaces at SLC that promote increased engagement with the outdoors and green spaces that serve the needs of our SLC community.   

Sustainable Landscape Management Plan - Process:

The college retained North-South Environmental Inc. and together we have conducted biodiversity assessments on all three campuses at SLC. With North South’s team of ecologists we were able to survey the three sites to understand what native or invasive plant species are living there, assess the ecological health of campus ground, and develop and ongoing monitoring system to assess biodiversity on an ongoing (semi-annual) basis moving forwards. Based on the findings of this assessment, North South has drafted recommendations to inform the Kingston Sustainable Landscape Management Plan (see first upload). Through this process, the College provided input into feasibility, campus-specific information and opportunities, interests and values, and sensitivities and concerns to refine the list of opportunities into a short list (see  the full uploaded recommendations report in sections OP9-OP10).

This report was further refined to include group feedback from several internal SLC partners which has been collected both before the assessment with North South Environmental took place (to guide the approach), and after the short list was presented. These include Health and Wellness, People, Belonging, and Culture (includes the HR team), Equity Diversity and Inclusion, Student Success, Research, several Academics departments, the Student Association, Indigenous Ways of Knowing and Being, Communications, Innovation, and the Facilities team. In this way we have incorporated diverse viewpoints, goals, and feedback from across the college into our plan. The Kingston campus’ plan will be the pilot for the Sustainable Landscape Management Plan and consultation sessions for the Brockville and Cornwall campuses will proceed this coming year (2024). Some highlights of the plan include:

• Grass to Meadow (Reduced Mowing, Over-Seed to Create Meadow Space).


• Helping Habitats (Log/Woody, Pollinator & Bird-focused Gardens, Bird and Bat Boxes, Micro-habitats.


• Trees and Plants (Building Biodiversity through High Value Plants, Mass Planting with Perennial Designs, Increased Shade (Tree Planting), Woodland /Miyawaki concepts)


• Enhancing Indigenous Garden Plantings.


• Construction of Outdoor Learning and Meeting Spaces.


• Walkways and Trails throughout campus grounds.


• Increasing Shade on Campus (Trees, shelters, pergolas). 

WWe have also uploaded the Kingston plan’s overview here as presented to the college partners with details of the concepts above. Implementation will be ongoing and has begun with the seeding of test plots for the meadow-scaping portion of the recommendations and the design work for phase 1 of the recommendations (including pollinator gardens and mass perennial planting).  

The Climate Leadership Program was piloted in Fall 2023 at St. Lawrence College (SLC). The purpose of the Program is to guide, inspire, and scale climate action in our local community through student leadership and student initiatives. The program provides real-world opportunities for participants to get engaged, network, and develop their social impact ideas.

The Process: This student engagement initiative is a two-phase project where participants identify a need in their local community by conducting a 'needs assessment', defining what that need is, developing ideas that address that need, and finally pitching their team's solution to win funding to a jury panel made up of SLC instructors, staff, and climate leaders. Funding is used to implement their climate action project in their local communities, providing a needed resource, and real-life project management experience for participating students.

Lens on Climate Action: To ensure the participants are focusing their project on climate action, the Climate Leadership Program requires that the research project and background falls under one of several categories, established in partnership by St. Lawrence College and the City of Kingston's Climate Action Neighbourhood Champions working group. Project scope need not be limited to just one category and project ideas can touch on multiple categories. These categories include: 

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  Transportation

  
  


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  Food security and systems

  
  


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  Energy and energy literacy

  
  


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  Biodiversity and/or natural environment

  
  


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  Waste diversion or waste innovation

  
  


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  Circular economy

  
  


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  Sustainable Fashion initiatives

  
  

Example from the program's student projects: our fall 2023 Climate Leadership Program winners were the Repair Together team. 

About: Repair Together is a non-profit tech start-up. Our mission is to dismantle barriers people face to accessing technology by refurbishing donated devices, and returning them to the community free of charge.

We believe everyone should have affordable access to technology, whether to stay connected with loved ones, gain access to employment, or just keeping up with everyday life. Repair Together has developed a CARE model based on the concept of a circular economy.  In our CARE model, we 

• Collect, 


• Assess, 


• Repair, and 


• Educate
  
  (see attached photo: the Repair Together, SLC's 2023 Climate Leadership Program winners. In this photo the team was at the 2024 Regionals competition where they placed second in the Enactus Environmental Sustainability Challenge for Central Canada).