The Sustainabilitree

Well it is the end of the year and I guess this the ideal time to talk about the year that was, and what a year it was. Allow me to guide you through what happened this year in sustainability. "2010 is going to be the year of SUSTAINABILITY" were the words of Pierre De Gagné, the Assistant Director of Engineering and Sustainable Development, and this pretty much set the tone for the entire year. The year kicked off with RecycleMania, which saw the University of Ottawa defend its title as Canadian Champs and place 14th overall. In February the SFUO's referendums produced 2 environmental outcomes, the Green Fund and the U-pass program. Both of which will have a dramatic impact on the campus. Earth Hour in March again saw the University achieving a 12% reduction in energy consumption (double that of the City of Ottawa). In March & April the University participated in Bottled Water Free Day. May was the most successful Dump and Run we have ever conducted. Over 2 tonnes of...

Photo credit: Vedrana Martincevic Green Space visualization (www.manyeyes.com) Let’s face it: there isn’t a single human being that willfully engages in the reading of 300 page reports filled with numbers. Some do it from necessity, but there’s hardly any joy to be found in analyzing countless statistics that eventually blur into little lines in front of your eyes. Yes, there are lots of useful numbers in there somewhere, but how do we extract them? How do we make this relevant to our target audience, and anyone else that may be interested? How do we dial back the agony of trawling through numbers for hours on end, praying they’ll end explaining themselves to you? In today’s world, particularly in the world of business, people have very little time. Everybody wants to get in and get out, and get tasks over with. That’s why we have abstracts, executive summaries, blurbs, overviews, and all those differently-named things that are really cut from th e same cloth. However, it is often diff...

Photo credit: Jonathan Rausseo I don’t know if you’re anything like me, but the fact that the Christmas lights and trees in the Rideau Centre have been up for weeks already alarms me to no end. It’s really difficult to get into the holiday spirit when I’m still wearing hoodies and carrying around an umbrella; not to mention the fact that midterms were still happening when the first wreaths went up. In any case, our lovely materialistic society is preparing to ring in yet another massive shop-a-thon season. Holiday hours are in effect in every mall and store, and I’m already overhearing people PANICKING about buying the perfect gift. Are you serious, people? But actually? For those of us that don’t subscribe to the crazy person’s newsletter, there is a different way to go about things – it’s called: “Let’s not kill our wallets, the environment, or our sanity.” I read a lovely little article this morning (http://www.justmeans.com/Have-yourself-a-Merry-Green-Christmas/38049.htm...

Photo credit: Jonathan Rausseo Chers cyclistes, Cet été, j’ai eu la merveilleuse occasion de me rendre à vélo jusqu’à une école où je travaillais située à l’ouest d’Ottawa. Au début, puisque j’étais incertaine de la localisation de l’école par rapport aux pistes cyclables, je décide de faire le trajet comme les voitures et d’emprunter les rues Sommerset et Richmond. Quel désastre: poussière, voitures, feux de circulation et paysage un peu trop urbain à mon goût... Après cette expérience, je demande les directions à deux-trois personnes et je reviens de l’école par la piste cyclable située le long de la Rivière des Outaouais. Je respire à pleins poumons, le ciel est bleu, les mouettes s’amusent et je retourne au centre-ville en aussi peu de temps que par la route! Pourquoi je vous compte mon périple à vélo, pensez-vous? Eh bien, vous le savez peut-être déjà, mais le 22 novembre la Commission de la capitale nationale (CCN), ainsi que les villes d’Ottawa et de Gatineau ont dévoilé avoir é...

Photo Credit: www.123rf.com (photo site) La région de l’Outaouais connait année après année une croissance marquée du nombre de personnes qui sont dans le besoin. Centraide à estimé à 21,2% la population de l’Outaouais qui vit avec un faible revenu. Ceci se manifeste par une augmentation significative dans la demande de service d’aide au près des œuvres de charités. De plus, 7000 est le nombre total de personnes qui auront eu recours à l’aide des œuvres de charités. Si vous voulez faire une différence et faire du ménage au même temps, prenez un petit 30 min pour jeter un coup d’œil dans votre garde-robe, bibliothèque et même cuisine. Mettez dans un sac ou dans une boite tous les articles que vous n’avez jamais utilisé et ceux que vous n’utiliseriez plus. Ajouter également à cela tout article que vous pensez jeter en pensant qu’il ne servira à personne. Rappelez-vous, la poubelle des uns est le trésor des autres! Apporter vos articles à une des résidences (complexe 90 Université, à Hy...

Photo Credit: Jonathan Rausseo Yes it is that time of the year again. Everyone on campus hits the malls to start the holiday shopping, starts drinking hot chocolate religiously, and starts getting the skates sharpened for the opening, closing, opening, and closing of the canal (damn you global warming !!!) But it is also the time of the year that sees the residences close for the holidays. As if exams weren't already stressful enough, the university also sends everyone packing for 2 weeks. Which is not such a bad thing from an energy point of view... but we can have that discussion some other time. This conversation is reserved for the Dump and Run. So you are about to leave to go home for the holidays, but... you have a ridiculous amount of stuff. A couple of bags clothes that don't fit anymore (damn you taste desserts !!!) or that you've decided just aren't your style, a few boxes of swag (that stuff you pick up for free at tales but that you never really do anything ...

On Tuesday night I attended a pretty cool event organized by the Telfer Student Council about Tom's Shoes. I am going to stop right here and play my "full disclosure" card. First the event was organized by Danielle Perrault (a former employee of mine). Second, it was a teaser event for the Sustainable Business Conference, for which I am on the organizing committee. But none of that should matter because the event was really cool for a couple of reasons. One, I had no knowledge about TOM's shoes before that night. Two, the event was followed up by a pretty good open forum talk that included Guy Laflamme (the VP Communications over at the NCC and a prof at the Telfer School). And three, about half of the event was conducted in French, making this event a pretty bilingual event. The night started up by a documentary viewing of TOM's Shoes. The movie actually didn't rub me the right way at first. It really started out as a bunch of rich people playing polo and tak...

Photo credit: Surveyonline Il y a deux semaines, j’ai eu le plaisir de travailler sur les sondages de la classe du cours de première année d’environnement…oui! Vous l’avez peut être deviné c’est dans le cadre du cours ENV1101, enseigner par Éric Crighton. Moi, je m’occupais des sondages concernant le recyclage au campus. La grande aventure commençait lorsque mon patron, Jon m’envoie les résultats des sondages qu’il a reçu des étudiants. J’en recevais une dizaine à la fois…au point que ma boite courriel ne fonctionnait pas très bien car elle était saturée de messages. Ma tâche principale était de s’assurer que les données sont bien rentrées dans les diverses pages Excel, pour en suite les jumeler dans un même document. Ça semble simple dit comme cela, mais la réalité était toute autre. Je vous explique. Les problèmes que j’ai rencontrés étaient soit que le fichier ne s’ouvrait pas, car il a été fait dans un ordinateur Mac, soit les données n’étaient pas complètes faute de tricherie d...

So last Friday was World Toilet Day and I figured that I really gotta get this post out before I get an old post. But I didn't have internet access this weekend and ... well you know how it is. Anyways WTD 2010 was celebrated on campus with a squat-a-thon and some great trivia games by the good people of the Health Promotion team. Yours truly (although maybe less so with this creepy moustache) even gave a presentation about water related issues on campus. So this post is dedicated to 2 things: a shout out to water sanitation and a bit of info about uOttawa's water management initiatives. I remember last year I counselled one of my student employees to do a project in her business class about the mighty toilet as one of the best inventions of all time. She got a great mark and learned something really important; mainly that half of the world's population does not have access to a toilet. In return, she schooled me about things I hadn't known about; mainly the millions ...

I was rencently flipping through the uOttawa ‘Research Perspectives’ magazine, and I came across a familiar face. Dr. Variola, a biomedical engineer chose a recyclied desk (the one in the picture) from our recycled furniture program. Each year, we renovate and optimize spaces around campus; which send an unbeleivable amount of furniture to landfill. This furniture is usually in perfect condition, was very expensive (the average workstation with filing cabinet and task chair has a price tag of about $2,200), and may only be a year old. A few years ago, we decided to start a program to collect this furniture, and offer it to other depatments on campus (rather than buying the same things). If a department or University service needs to get rid of their furniture, we get it transferred to our storage, where it is sorted and put on display for future university employees. If a university employee is in need of a specific piece of furniture, they come by and choose what would be best for th...

Okay so you didn’t hear this from me but I may have gotten in over my head. You see I am working on this project with Eric Crighton, a prof over in the Geography and Environmental Studies. Actually we have been working together for the past four years on this project. The objective of our project is very simple. Use first year students to change the way that our school work is conducted to basically save the world. Please allow me to put together a couple of concepts that have crossed my path recently. 1- There is this concept called the Living Laboratory. It is pretty simple; use the campus as a huge on-going experiment so that every day events can become teachable moments. So a building gets built – engineering students study how this happens. A new marketing campaign is launched – communications students evaluate its success. A jogging club is formed – health science students help create an optimum training schedule. And so on and so on. 2- Course Work Ecology – why is it that we ar...

Publiée le 29 Octobre, 2010 Le Halloween est une fête apprécier tant par les enfants que par grands, comme nos étudiants à l’Université d’Ottawa. La dépense pour les décorations, costumes et bonbons est estimée à 55$ par personne. Ceci prouve pourquoi les ventes de bonbons et de grignotines au Canada a augmenté de 47 millions de dollars en 2007 pour donner une somme de 285 million $. (Voir note 1 en bas) Cette année je vous propose d’être économe et écologique au même temps. Comment me diriez-vous? C’est simple. i) La décoration : commencer par acheter une citrouille locale et garder la chair et les graines pour faire de bons potages, muffin et tarte. Illuminer les citrouilles, je vous aurai proposé d’acheter les chandelles de cire ou de soja qui ne sont pas faites à base de pétrole, mais elles sont malheureusement trop couteuse pour notre maigre bugget d’étudiant. Alors, je vous propose de les illuminer avec des lampes de poches sans pile Lorsque Halloween se term...

Photo Credit: Jonathan Rausseo So, I raved and ranted just a tiny bit in the last blog, but to be honest, I was incredibly frustrated with the way the 101 Week turned out, with regards to recycling and general respect for the milieu. Socially, the week was a tremendous success, despite the offensively hideous weather. I believe that the reason why our 101 Week was less successful in regards to campus sustainability is the fact that the guides were not put in a position where they cared enough to act accordingly themselves, let alone influence the 101ers positively. This negative attitude began with guide training, where the individuals training the incoming guides flipped through all the slides concerning campus sustainability as though they were entirely irrelevant to the rest of the presentation. The fact is, they’re not. If the trainers don’t care, then we have no reason to. The chain of apathy continues, and voila! Now the 101ers don’t care either. Once you’ve already dismissed th...

Photo Credit: Jonathan Rausseo New students arrived on this campus well before the start of classes to participate in 101 Week, and this was the best possible opportunity to inform them of everything that happens on this campus. As both a guide and employee of this office, I felt it necessary to make sure that the new students were aware of our bottle-free state, and that they know how to recycle on campus. The logistics of planning 101 Week and all its events are extremely complex, as there are so many elements to consider, and often, adding on a ‘green’ element will take a back seat. The main reason is that there are a lot of students generating a lot of waste, and managing this aspect is a tremendous effort. Since the University is now officially bottled water free, water bottles have been replaced by providing large water jugs that the students can use to fill up their own reusable bottles. This cuts down on a lot of plastic being left as waste, but this isn’t the only problem. Ju...

Photo Credit: Jonathan Rausseo As I sit in my office surrounded by literally over 100 plants I can't help but wonder how I got here. Co-workers pass by and constantly ask if they can have one, but I deny them any access to the precious plants. "No, these plants are for science!" I exclaim. Let's back up. A couple of months ago I got an e-mail from Dr Scott Findlay about EVS 3101 . Every year Scott teaches the course and every year he makes sure to contact the science community and ask them if we have an interesting project for his students. Every year I submit a couple of ideas and every year I never get any takers, but this year I only submitted one. I can't quite explain why but it seemed like this was the big one... the experiment that would help make a difference. And so, this year, unlike any other year, my project was accepted. A group of three students will study the impact of indoor plants on the air quality of a classroom. I guess I should explain why I ...

Photo Credit: Danika Brisson's camera Last night the SFUO’s Sustainability Center got things started with a bang. The center, which is only a couple of months old, held their first open house with the community. There was cake, and juice, and oh yes.... reusable dishes. Opted for a whiteboard instead of a paper flip chart, the Center assembled a group of environmentally minded individuals in the Café Alt to discuss how the community would like to see the Center play a role on campus. In fact, all were invited to attend. There were a myriad of ideas: everything from more options for vegetarians, to more assessments of how green are the SFUO businesses, to creating a blog to increase information flow for opportunities (hhhmmmm I think that at this point I feel it is my duty to at least offer this blog as a potential candidate for more helping centralize green activities). I walked away from the meeting feeling pretty good. For years there have been a handful of environmental initiati...

Photo Credit: Damon Chen There are so many reasons to want to bike. I mean yeah there’s the environment, saving money and that bit of exercise. But seriously it’s just plain fun. You get to know your community on a whole different level, and get to pull some serious Kevin Lynchian urban jamming. Unfortunately though, cycling as a hobby isn’t always the easiest thing to break into. When I started biking about a year and a half ago, I was a disaster. I didn’t even know that cyclists were supposed to obey stop signs. I couldn’t tell the difference between a derailleur and a gear cassette, and changing an inner tube was way beyond my meagre skills. My friends called me a public hazard and I had no evidence to the contrary. Let’s be honest here, there’s a bit of a learning curve to biking, especially if you’re the first amongst your friends. There isn’t any kind of licensing to biking which is great for accessibility, but also means that there’s no one that’s really responsible for making s...

Photo credit: Danny Albert A grey parking lot sits in the middle of the campus. For one day of the year it gets to shine and yesterday (September 22nd) was that day. I don't know if you had a chance to pass by and see the Car Free Day (CFD) festivities but it was something to look at. There was a dunk tank featuring the boys and girls of the Protection Service, and two SFUO executives (Ted Horton and Tyler Steeves). There was a barbeque, information tables, bike repairs, free yoga sessions, and a farmer's market to top it all off. Unfortunately there wasn't very much traffic moving through the event, which was incidentally held in Parking lot K just beside the residences. There was one other very special thing at the CFD that I was particularly happy about. For this occasion we actually took a parcel of the parking lot and laid down some sod, effectively creating our own new green space. "Destroying a parking lot to create a green space" is what we called it. I e...

uPass! Whoo! Wait, what? Well, let me tell you. If you’re currently not aware, the uPass pilot project will be implemented on uOttawa’s lovely campus this coming September (i.e. next month). It’s an 8 month bus pass being offered at a greatly reduced price to full-time students of the University. The cost is included in your tuition, and you can pick it up starting the 23rd of August, at 9 am, in the couch lounge of UCU. Alright, now you know all the bureaucratic details; what about the practicality? The fact is, with two major bus stops on campus, it’s incredibly easy to get anywhere in the city using public transport. This is useful for running errands, accessing more of the city, and most importantly, getting to and from home. Many students have a lengthy commute to and from campus, so they have no choice but to have a bus pass to begin with; however, now it comes with their tuition! For the others that think this is a bad idea because they live near or on campus, consider this: you...

With the fall term just around the corner (I also shuddered involuntarily; it’s okay), it’s time for us students to slowly begin preparing for the intellectual onslaught of our coming courses. We have a lot to prepare, what with textbooks, notebooks, pens, pencils, binders and highlighters to buy, in addition to finalizing course selections, OSAP, and other bureaucratic nightmares. The major problem with this time of the year is that most people go out and buy a new set of EVERYTHING, despite the fact they have a majority of last year’s supplies left over. Not only is this bad for your wallet, but it greatly increases the amount of waste being spewed out into our environment. Here are some things you can do to lessen your Back-to-School environmental impact: Buy used books! Not only are you saving tons of money, but you’re also reusing books that are made from many a paper. Reuse notebooks, but if you must buy new ones, buy recycled paper notebooks. Also ask your profs if you can use l...

Êtes-vous au courant du programme intitulé écochampion? Même si ce dernier ne s’adresse pas aux étudiants, mais plutôt aux employés de l’Université, je pense qu’il en vaut certainement la peine d’en parler. Cet été j’ai travaillé au bureau du Développement Durable de l’Université d’Ottawa et j’étais surprise d’apprendre que ce programme date seulement du 22 avril 2010. Lorsque j’ai eu l’occasion d’assister à une des rencontres trimestrielle des participants, appelés les écochampions, j’ai remarqué une bonne énergie aux près des écochampions et tout le monde était très à l’aise avec le programme. En plus, l’équipe du bureau du Développement Durable, (Marc Pandi, la personne ressource), qui se charge de ce programme, interagissait clairement avec les participants comme si le programme lui-même existait depuis belle lurette. Comme vous le verrez sur leur site web (voir adresse du site ci-dessous), le concept de cette initiative est simple : créer un réseau de personnes motivées à changer...

Photo Credit: octranspo1.com Je reviens d’un voyage de 10 jours en Guadeloupe et je vous garantie que j’en reviens différente pas à cause de ses magnifiques paysages, ni de ses plus belles plages, mais plutôt à cause du système de transport. Là ou on est resté (Basse-Terre) c’est le coté montagneux de l’île. Comme toute colonie européenne qui se respecte, les routes sont étroites et il n’y a que des ronds-points; ce qui est pour nous quelque chose d’inhabituellement terrifiants pour la simple raison qu’il est difficile d’avoir le tour pour passer. En plus, Damme Nature a aussi ajouté son grain de sel; Basse-Terre est le coté de l’île le plus montagneux. Et croyez-moi, les pentes sont longues et apiques sur le bord de la plage. Durant ce voyage, mon emprunte écologique était grande. Je devais uniquement me déplacé en voiture faute de la quasi absence du système de transport sur ce coté de l’île. En fait, jamais j’aurai cru qu’en cette colonie française, la voiture est très présente da...

Photo credit: lunapad.com Last week, as I was visiting the Lunapads website , I came across an incredible project. For those of you who are not familiar with Lunapads or the DivaCup, let me enlighten you! Lunapads are washable cloth menstrual products, and the DivaCup is a reusable silicone menstrual cup that is environmentally responsible, and latex, plastic and BPA-free. These products are wonderful environmentally-friendly versions of the tampons and pads you would find at your local drugstore. Here are a few environment (and health) facts for you before we begin: Approximately 20 billion pads, tampons and applicators are sent to North American landfills annually. On an individual level, each of the approximately 73 million menstruating women in North America will throw away 125 to 150kg, or approximately 16,800 disposable pads or tampons, in her lifetime. Disposable pads and tampons are made primarily of bleached kraft pulp or viscose rayon, the origin of which is wood cellulose fr...

Photo credit: lunapad.com La semaine dernière, j’ai découvert un merveilleux projet lorsque je fréquentais le site web de Lunapads . Pour ceux et celles qui ne sont pas encore familiers avec le DivaCup ou le Lunapad, laissez-moi vous éclairer! Les deux sont des produits de menstruation écologiques ; les Lunapads sont en tissus lavables et le DivaCup est une petite tasse en silicone qui ne contient aucun latex, plastique, ni même de BPA. Au fin de compte, ces produits sont de formidables alternatives écologiques aux tampons et serviettes sanitaires que tu peux trouver dans la pharmacie du coin. Voici quelques faits écologiques (et médicaux) sur les produits menstruels communs: Chaque année, il y a environ 20 milliard tampons, applicateurs et serviettes sanitaires qui sont envoyés aux dépotoirs en Amérique du Nord. Au cours de sa vie, chacune des 73 millions de femmes menstrués en Amérique du Nord va envoyer 125 à 150kg ou environ 16,800 serviettes sanitaires ou tampons jetables au ...

Photo credit: Jon Rausseo When furniture reaches its expiry date, or simply doesn’t fit a space anymore, what do you do? Throwing it out is a waste of perfectly good furniture, but who has the time to dismantle countless pieces and recycle them, especially if the units can be reused? That is where we come in. Our furniture recycling program takes undesired furniture from all over campus and tries to find a new home for it! In the interim, the furniture gets stored at 200 Lees, where I lurk with a clipboard and pen, desperately trying to create a wonderful inventory system for it. Currently, the system follows the come-by-and-see method, usually followed by okay-let’s-find-a-matching-chair-and/or-table. What I am aiming to do is create a method to our madness, and make this furniture recycling program into something more. We want the rooms that the items are stored in to eventually look like showroom floors: well-organized, well-labelled and tidy. That end product is still floating on t...

Photo Credit: Jonathan Rausseo À tous les amateurs de café : votre amour pour le café n’est certes pas une excuse pour boire du café quotidiennement dans une tasse en papier ou styromousse. Pourquoi? Considérez ceci : 6500 tasses de café sont vendues chaque jour au campus, durant l’année scolaire. C’est assez de tasse pour aller d’Ottawa à Toronto! À mon avis c’est presque une honte sur notre Université qui se proclame une des universités les plus écologiques. Si la décision finale me revenait, il y a long temps que j’aurai éliminé les tasses de café jetables pour les remplacé par des tasse réutilisables que l’on rapportera au café plus tard ou que l’on peut poser à divers endroit au campus. Je sais que cela peu choquer beaucoup d’entre vous car on se dit, oui mais qu’arrivera-t-il si un jour j’oublie ma tasse et je ne veux pas utiliser les tasse que l’on fournit. Je vous répondrais que ca sera tempi pour vous car on essaie constamment d’accommoder les gens sans que ces derniers fasse ...

Photo Credit: Jonathan Rausseo Bikes, bikes, bikes. It's all I ever hear about these days. There's the Bike Share program, the forth-coming Bike Coop, bike prevention tables and so on and so on. I just finished writing a description about Bike to Work week and taking my bike to the shop to change out the sprocket. I guess what I am trying to say is that with so much "cycling" around me it is hard to remember that not everyone does it. The number of cyclists on campus is on the rise. This year 6% of the campus reported that they use bicycles to get around. Although this number is up from previous years, the number is actually really low. In Denmark 27% of all trips are made by bicycle. In the U.S., and probably Canada, we haven't reached the double digits yet. So what to do? Well a friend just sent me this nice article from the Scientific American (thanks Nads) about how to get more people biking. The solution... women. The article argues that biking rates would go...

During the summer, the temperatures skyrocket, the buses are crowded and sticky with the sweat of many a stranger and walking seems like a death sentence. There are plenty of places that we want to be, but there is the problem of getting there without wanting to lie down and pray to whatever deity that you’ll survive sweating out your life. Well, friends, there is a solution! That solution is BIKING! I’m aware that summer is coming to an end; however, biking season isn’t quite yet. A lot of people enjoy cycling as a means of transport and/or exercise already, but you know what they say: “The more, the merrier!” The use of a bike isn’t limited to the summer, either; some die-hards bike around the city even in the depths of winter, but if you’re not in that category, it’s no big deal. The fact of the matter is that biking, in addition to providing an excellent means of transport with no detriment to the environment, is extremely good for the health! You build stamina, improve fitness, bu...

Photo credit: www.abc.net.au Vous êtes-vous déjà demandé quels sont les impacts environnementaux du monde des Internet? Ou bien vous faites partie de ceux, comme moi, qui cette question ne leur a jamais traversé l’esprit? En faisant une recherche rapide sur les INTERNET, je me suis vite rendu compte que le monde virtuel des Internet pollue énormément. Bon, au point ou on est rendu on ne pourra se passer des Internet, et il ne serait pas pertinent de l’abolir puisque presque tout fonctionne par, grâce ou avec les Internet. Par contre il y a des gestes que l’on peut faire afin de minimiser l’empreinte écologique de ce réseau virtuel sur la planète, tel que garder notre boite de courriel légère. Pour en savoir plus, lisez l’article de la gazette, intitulé Le cout environnemental caché des courriels, dans notre section de nouvelles concernant le développement durable sur le campus au lien si dessous et vous jugerez par vous-même le degrés de pollution que génère les internet. Bonne lecture...