Green College Spotlight: University of British Columbia

The University of British Columbia was the first university in Canada to adopt a sustainable development policy, and to open a campus Sustainability Office.  The University of British Columbia (UBC) has campuses in Vancouver and Kelowna, British Columbia.  Named on Grist.org’s 2007 list of Greenest Colleges, UBC is well known as a vibrant school where environmental responsibility is at the top of their priority list.

UBC offers a unique academic program called SEEDS – social, ecological, economic development studies. It brings together students, faculty and staff for projects that address sustainability issues, including studying stormwater treatment alternatives, finding innovative ways to market Fair Trade coffee, reducing pesticide use and exploring a sustainable food system for the campus.  Students receive academic credit for their participation.

Some of the ways in which UBC has risen above other Canadian colleges on the ecological front include a comprehensive energy management program, a variety of green campus structures, paper reduction efforts, and a team of sustainability coordinators that includes both staff and students.  UBC has been honored with Green Campus Recognition from the World Wildlife Federation for three years, and the college offers more than 300 sustainability-related courses.

UBC’s Residential Environmental Assessment Program was launched in 2006 to steward development in the college’s University Town neighborhoods. The program uses a residential green rating system to determine how green the buildings are, and assesses water consumption, energy consumption, indoor environmental quality and material and resource use. The REAP program has ratings that range from Basic Compliance to Platinum, and helps make UBC one of the greenest campuses in Canada.

Green buildings on campus include the LEED gold-rated Life Sciences Center, the award-winning C.K. Choi Building for the Institute of Asian Research and the Liu Center for the Study of Global Issues.  The C.K. Choi Building features many used and recycled materials, natural ventilation and composting toilets; the Liu Center is partially constructed of ‘fly ash’, a waste material from coal-firing power plants that replaces cement in the concrete mix.  The Aquatic Ecosystems Research Laboratory is pending LEED silver certification, and the ICICS/Computer Science building boasts a mechanical system that uses chilled slab for cooling.

Check out UBC’s Sustainability Office home page, where you can see real-time figures of sheets of copy paper, kWh of electricity and liters of water used as well as the amounts of these resources that have been saved and how much money these efforts have saved the school. On the same page, you can view videos of UBC’s green building tour and sustainability initiatives.

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