It might be strange to think about this but often the most influential and impactful technology on campus tends to be older technology, especially when it comes to environmental sustainability. I was recently asked to speak at a course about Technology, Society, and the Environment. The idea behind inviting me was to speak to the group about how campus sustainability has been helped along by technology. I thought that I might share this list with you too so you could learn a bit about the new, the old, the unconventional, and the interesting technologies that helped shaped our campus over the past few years. The Living Wall One of the most popular pieces of technology is the University of Ottawa's living wall. In fact, the wall is not just a pretty assortment of 1500 plants, it is a biofilter which is being used to help filter the air inside the FSS Building. The wall helps cleanse 80-85% of the volatile compounds in the air  and it was also instrumental in helping soli...

Book worms at the University of Ottawa rejoice! You will be happy to know that you can continue to study at the library and be perfectly at ease with the fact that the library is using less energy. Admittedly energy consumption and libraries don't typically go hand in hand but they should. Did you know that library are energy pigs. Think about it, lots of people that need fresh air circulated around and books that can't get too dry or too wet or they risk being damaged. Finding that balance takes a whole bunch of energy. So today I thought I would share with you some good news from our EcoProsperity program. Now for those of you who don't know, the uOttawa EcoProsperity program is just a fancy name we have given to our energy savings program. Essentially we are going around to every building on campus and trying to make it more efficient. This past year the engineers and operations people at Physical Resources Service have been working to see what they could do t...