Wilfrid Laurier University
EN-3: Student Life

Ecohawks
The Ecohawks work to raise awareness of environmental issues, promote sustainable living and encourage the reduction of individuals' ecological footprints. They hold a number of events including Lug-a-Mug which encourages the use of reusable travel mugs, Out-of-the-Bottle which encourages the use of reusable water bottles, they host school-wide events for Earth Hour, a "Green Store" at Christmas which features sustainable vendors, they host a sustainability advocacy campaign, and promote the use of Laurier's reusable takeout container.

Sustainability Council
The Sustainability Council is comprised of first-year students from across campus that aim to unify Residence Life and the Sustainability Office through creating integrated programming and providing increased access to campus resources. Students involved in this council collaborate on planning, promoting, and executing residence wide events and programming that enable the first year community to engage in sustainable activities and learn about their environmental impact. Events include the Building Dashboard Residence Energy Competition, Eco-Pong, Waste Education campaigns, a Stuff Swap, and more.

WLU Farm Market
The Farm Market operates once a week in the main student center on campus. It provides students with an opportunity to purchase local, organic, fair-trade, and sustainably produces food including vegetables, fruits, and baked goods.

Net Impact
Net Impact is an international non-profit organization with a mission to inspire, educate and equip individuals with the power of business to create a more socially and environmentally sustainable world. Events include hosting socially and environmentally responsible guest speakers, a coffee cup challenge, trips to visit companies and businesses whose operations are based on the triple bottom line.

Enactus
Enactus is a global non-profit organization that uses programs to aid the Laurier community as well as the community of Kitchener-Waterloo, with a special committee dedicated to sustainability and environmental initiatives. A few of their events include a clothing and item swap, a Go Green Blitz, a project to create notepads out of paper that has only been used on one side and more.

Indigenous Student Association
The ASA will provide Aboriginal students academic and personal support throughout their years at Wilfrid Laurier University’s Waterloo campus. Also, the ASA will provide Aboriginal students a place to come together and celebrate their heritage while also educating the general public.

Students for Sustainability
Students for Sustainability aims to connect, support, and create impact. They provide opportunities for students to learn about corporate sustainability from industry leaders, offer valuable volunteer experience by contributing to the community's sustainability goals, and implement projects that create positive environmental change.

Something Golden
Something Golden is a sustainable initiative on campus which enables students to purchase used goods at affordable rates. This includes clothing, appliances, and furniture.

Laurier SDG Advocacy Network
The Laurier SDG Advocacy is a student organization on campus advocating for the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which covers three dimensions of sustainable development: economic growth, social inclusion, and environmental protection. Their mission is to take a holistic approach to raising awareness for each Global Goal within the community. They aim to support SDG initiatives on campus through partnerships and collaborations with other on-campus clubs for advocacy.

Vegan and Vegetarian Association (VAVA)
VAVA’s main purpose on campus is to promote healthy living, animal rights, and environmental consciousness; with our biggest beneficiary being the promotion of vegetarian/veganism. They aim to show the benefits of a vegetarian and vegan diet while raising awareness of the consequences linked to the consumption of animal products.

Laurier Naturalists
The Laurier Naturalists seek to connect students and the Laurier community with the surrounding environment, wildlife, and the biotic community, engaging in a number of activities that revolve around being outdoors.

An Indigenous Community Garden, Mino-Kummik Garden, has been created at the Waterloo campus, located at the WLU Aboriginal Student Center. This organically grown and maintained garden provides:
- Students with the experience of growing their own food
- Growing of the four sacred medicine plants to assist with smudging ceremonies
- Growing vegetables for weekly soup days which provide inexpensive and healthy community meals at that Aboriginal Student House
- Sharing of indigenous plant knowledge and methodology
- Community partnering with environmental organizations to further its use
- The hosting of workshops teaching organic gardening techniques to students and community members

Laurier Edible Fruit Forest: in 2017, with support from a Tree Canada grant, laurier planted over 100 edible fruit trees, shrubs and ground cover at our Northdale site. Through a partnership with a local organization called Gleaners Guilde, we host guided workshops for students on how to harvest and prepare food.

Laurier Apiary & Wild Bee Habitat: in 2017 Laurier installed two honey bee colonies on campus and harvested approximately 70 jars of honey (350ml) in the fall of 2017. In 2018 the apiary was expanded to included wild bee habitat features and food sources (native floral sources)

Laurier has a 14,000 square foot urban micro farm at the Northdale camous (66 Hickory Street West). And through our partnership with Young City Growers (YCG) we are able to offer students, faculty, and staff weekly bushels of fresh, home-grown produce during the harvest season through a Laurier Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. YCG works to increase participant's knowledge and skills of organics farming, environmental stewardship, local food systems, and entrepreneurial skills in operating a CSA micro-urban farm.

The WLU Farm Market operates weekly during the school year to provide students with an opportunity to purchase local, organic, fair-trade, and sustainably produced food including vegetables, fruits, and baked goods.

The Farm Market provides valuable business skills to its members and volunteers. It allows students to gain customer experience skills while developing knowledge of the sales process. This includes identifying the needs of customers (students), satisfying those needs, and providing feedback to the executive team through customer interactions. Additionally, volunteers assist with determining inventory levels, setting prices for products, and merchandising the product offering to attract more sales. Furthermore, as an executive in charge of the Farmers' Market, the individual requires strong knowledge of supply chain and consumer demand. Each week, the executive team examines the sales of each offering and adapts the order for the following week. Additionally, the executives liaise with the Coordinator and the WLUSU Management Team, managing and handling the cash flow required and obtained from the Farmers' Market operations.

Something Golden
Something Golden is a sustainability initiative on campus which enables students to purchase used goods at affordable rates. This includes clothing, appliances, and furniture.

Sustainable Hawk Fund
The Laurier Sustainability Office has dedicated up to $30,000 annually to help grow sustainability ideas that benefit the Laurier community. Our objective is to leverage Laurier's entrepreneurial and community spirit by engaging students, faculty, and staff to integrate sustainability practices into all aspects of student life at Laurier.

HAWKstarter "Planting a Laurier Forest"
In partnership with Laurier Alumni's crowdfunding platform, HAWKstarter, the Laurier Sustainability Office successfully raised over $6000 for the "Planting a Laurier Forest" campaign. This campaign raised money to plant over 125 trees on campus.

2018 - Planet in Focus film festival
2017 - Author Speaker Series with Chris Turner
2017 - Janes walk on local food on campus
2018 - Janes walk on Pollinators
2017 - Green Energy Doors Open
2016 - Spring Food Forum with guest speaker Anan Lololi
2016 & 2017 - IKEA Sustainability Challenge
2018 - WWF Design Change for a Living Planet challenge
2015 - RAIN Water Innovations Walk

The Laurier Students Public Interest Research Group (LSPIRG) employs community collaboration, research, and education, in order to provide opportunities for those at Laurier and the local community, to be agents of social change, in pursuit of a just world, such as Yoga in the community garden.

The library has hosted a number of art installations and exhibits related to sustainability in the Robert Langdon Art Gallery, including:

- Penelope Stewart's ""Thicket"" made of beeswax
Thicket features three haptic garden spaces created in the gallery. Comprised of an installation of 12,000 beeswax leaves, a collection of photographs and a series of beeswax cast sculptures - artist Penelope Stewart expands the visual field while creating a reciprocal conversation between image and object.

- Eat Local, Taste Global book launch
Eat Local, Taste Global: How Ethnocultural Food Reaches Our Tables shows how the demand for ethnocultural vegetables on the part of Toronto’s South Asian, Chinese, and Afro-Caribbean Canadians is at odds with the corporate food regime. How does that regime affect the local food movement and ethnic groups’ access to their preferred foods? This book addresses that question and suggests that the protection of ethnic and national food security and sovereignty strengthens immigrant integration while producing healthy crossover effects for other Canadians. The authors will do a brief presentation and lead a discussion about issues addressed in the book.

- Ron Benner's ""Transend: Meeting Room"" on orgins of food and food sustainability
Experience a mixed media installation by London, Ontario-based artist and social justice activist Ron Benner

- Native and Indigenous Plants botanical exhibit

Laurier Naturalists are a campus club which aims to get people thinking about the outdoors and providing opportunities for students to learn about and spend time with nature. Due to logistics, funding and transportation issues, the club does not currently offer any kayaking or backpacking opportunities. We do however, organize local hikes giving students a chance to get outdoors and learn about the natural world. Other events include bringing in guest speakers from various outdoor fields as well as organizing activities and educational booths open to any and all interested students. Because we have not had the resources to do overnight outings or large excursions we have never needed to use leave no trace principals however, our events on campus have never caused any sort of environmental impact. Our events generally occur every few weeks however this is gradually increasing with a growing exec team. Some examples of Laurier Naturalist events include biodiversity fairs, movie nights and guest lectures.

Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup with WWF
In 2017, Laurier's Sustainability Office teamed up with WWF through their Living Planet @ Campus program to cleanup the Grand River shoreline located in Brantford, ON. Students from the Brantford and Waterloo campuses volunteered for the day to make an impact. This helped to protect the habitat of aquatic and shoreline species.

Outdoor Adventures Residence Learning Community
Living in the Outdoor Adventures RLC empowers you to discover the wonders and challenges of the natural world! Students will be exposed to outdoor adventure such as snowshoeing, hiking, and geocaching to name a few. Field trips are common, including trips to local Conservation Areas and Provincial Parks in Ontario. With adventures occurring in both semesters, you will experience all that the winter season has to offer and how invigorating being outside can be. This is a unique community for those with the urge for an outdoor adventure at every opportunity and develop leadership skills along the way.

Annual Residence Energy Challenge
Run by the Sustainability Council, the annual competition pits each residence building on Laurier's Waterloo campus against each other to see who can reduce their energy consumption the most. The winning residence building reaps the prizes! In 2016 our residence buildings were collectively able to reduce their electricity consumption by 14,037 kWh over one week.

24/7 Green Living Guides were given out to all first year students for the past 3 years.

Employment opportunities with the Sustainability Office. One focuses on the Sustainability Council program in residence at both Waterloo and Brantford campuses, another is for general projects out of the Office at our Waterloo campus and the last is for the Brantford campus. The Sustainability Office also hire students during the school year and summer months as a sustainability assistants.

Additionally, the Sustainability Office has participated in Laurier's International Student Work Experience Program (ISWEP), an on-campus work experience program for international students at the Waterloo and Brantford campuses.

The goals of ISWEP are to:
Create opportunities for international students to gain work experience on campus.
Benefit the Laurier community with the global perspectives of our diverse international students.

WWF Living Planet @ Campus program launching fall of 2018 will include this.
The program formally launches in 2018, however, we began promoting it in Sept 2017 and have had over 400 students already sign up for the program launch.