Green roof on the Tabaret Building Our office has been working at improving sustainability on campus since 2006 and I am happy to say that we have had a lot of success. But one of the areas that we are still hoping to improve after all these years in our green space.  What is considered by many sustainability-minded institutions to be the crown jewel of their campus (lush green spaces) is a bit of a sticking point here at uOttawa. You see, a lot of older institutions were created through land grants or large land donations. This gave institutions the ability to finance the expansion of their programs by leasing and selling land. Not unliked these institutions, the University of Ottawa was founded based on a land donation by the Besserer family. But unlike some other land grants, it was a small parcel of land which means that since then the institutions has had to slowly try to buy up surrounding land. Sometimes this works... sometimes it doesn't. After years of purchasing land and ...

This blog is written by a student and does not represent the opinions of the Office of Campus Sustainability. On February 5th, the Climate Café team hosted the Climate Justice uOttawa club (CJCUO). CJCUO is committed to fostering change on both the campus and in the broader community. From campus initiatives to broader environmental campaigns, this dedicated group is at the forefront of the fight for climate justice on campus, proving that change starts at the grassroots level.  Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time. It threatens not only our environment, but also our society, our economy and our well-being. Faced with this challenge, it is important to understand the issues involved in climate justice, a concept that aims to reduce inequalities and promote equity in the fight against global warming.   What is climate justice?   Climate justice is based on the idea that climate change does not affect everyone in the same way. Some groups a...

In the Fall of 2023, the UOSU Sustainability Centre launched a new program, Climate Cafés. The goal was to have a weekly drop in session for students to gather together to talk about climate issues. It's a space for sharing knowledge, grief, fear, and to come together collectively to talk about and support each other in the face of the climate crisis. Each week was a different topic or theme.  One of our favourite topics, was talking about COP, the Conference of the Parties. It was great to discuss current events as they were happening and to be able to breakdown and understand what was going on. COP is a major annual gathering where global environmental issues are discussed by many countries globally and crucial decisions are made to combat climate change. The 2023 COP28 was held in Dubai and promised to be a turning point in the global quest for a more sustainable future. The Loss and Damage Fund In the early days of COP28, significant progress was made with the realization of th...

The University of Ottawa is trying to create a clean air community. This is not an easy task and is often overshadowed by the other big air-related sustainability issue... climate change. But poor air quality is a huge issue and it has a direct impact on your quality of life. So we are going to discuss a few of the things uOttawa has done to improve air quality on campus, but first - a small history interlude! Imagine this, you just finished a long week of work and magically you have the entire weekend off... no reports to finish or class work to get caught up on... just time for you to relax. You decide to spend your day outside because you already spend so much time in front of a screen. So you grab your bike or your hiking shoes, choose a location, grab your water bottle, and head out. There's only one problem, when you get outside the air is dense and grey... in fact it's so thick you find it hard to breathe. It is a little hard to remember now, but there was a time in Otta...

This summer we are featuring a series of blog posts from students in the ENV 2301 course "History of Environmental Thought". We are super happy to highlight the thoughts and ideas of these bright young individuals. Everyone cares about climate change. I mean, we’re all supposed to, right? Save for the climate change deniers a la Donald Trump mold, saving the Earth has been pushed to the forefront of social issues, and it seems like everybody cares. The real question is does everyone know what to do to help? Putting desires into simple daily practices is still an area where most people struggle to “walk the talk. A big reason for this is a lack of information and resources, but for some people it is just an issue of caring. The University has a responsibility to ensure that every student who leaves this institution is equipped with the knowledge to live sustainably and be able to think critically about climate change. Simply put, the University must try their best to g...

This summer we are featuring a series of blog posts from students in the ENV 2301 course "History of Environmental Thought". We are super happy to highlight the thoughts and ideas of these bright young individuals. With close to 50,000 members of the University of Ottawa, representing both staff and student, our university is responsible for a large influx of vehicles, electricity, food resources, and other consumables that help the university run. However, given this large population, the negative effects on our climate are inevitable with our current practices, and are unsustainable. While one university alone cannot change the scope of climate change, practicing climate and earth conscious measures can help promote a more environmentally conscious system to other private and public institutions, in hope of creating a cumulative effect. Thus, for this article I propose a solution to Earth well-being and climate change, to re-adjust 7:00 pm to 6:00 am scheduling in order...

We certainly live in strange times. Not many people predicted the impact the COVID19 virus would have on the planet. People are coming together (metaphorically), to share resources and support one another. But COVID19 is also sharing an important message about the impending climate crisis. The big question is, are we listening. I am definitely not the only person asking this question, but is the COVID19 crisis a sneak peek of what's to come with the climate crisis? I want to explore what we can learn and how we might adapt. I don't intend to draw a link to the virus and changes in the climate (many people have already done that). But I intend to draw the comparisons between COVID19 and climate change. The first thing to consider is how the two crises are similar. This is not an exhaustive list, but it gets the point across. Both have a global reach; Both disproportionately impact lower economic / social groups; Both have disbelievers who think that it won't impac...

Sometimes it can feel like a huge weight is pushing down on your chest. You hear about the impending doom of climate change but it doesn't seem like people are concerned. Every day you see people acting like it's all cool. Instagram photos from a secluded beach, or a delectable steak dinner, or a mini shopping spree... air travel, red meat, consumerism. I mean the Amazon is literally burning and all your friends are doing is wondering if you are up for a pub crawl on Friday. That feeling you are experiencing, that weight on your chest, is what people are starting to call climate anxiety. It is a recent phenomenon, although we can hardly say that anxiety is something new. What has really changed lately is the constant reporting on climate related issues. On one side, it is great that people are learning more about climate change and wanting to take action. But on the other hand, people are starting to confront the difficulty of the task at hand and it is admittedly pretty t...

We were able to accomplish quite a bit last year to make our campus more sustainable! Take a look at some of the awesome things that happened, from transportation, to recycling, and more. Thank you, uOttawa students, staff, and community members, for helping us make our campus as green as it can be. Record Waste Diversion Rate The University has reached a record waste diversion rate of 64.5%! That means that 64.5% of materials from the campus did not go to the landfill because we reused or recycled them. Thank you for recycling! Thank you, volunteers! This year, our amazing volunteers contributed a collective 4,220 hours towards sustainability efforts on campus. Thank you to our Free Store volunteers, Muggy Mondays volunteers, and Community Service Learning volunteers, as well as those who helped out with other events. Your contributions are very valuable and appreciated.  Introducing VeloGo bike sharing program on campus  You may have seen thes...

Sometimes it is all too easy to look at the deluge of environmental bad news and feel helpless in the face of the impending doom. Rising sea levels, species in decline, toxic air floating over toxic lakes. Current events fuel distopian nightmares of a future that has droughts on top of floods, ice storms on top of heat waves, and an environment turned topsy-turvy. But we have to remember that the future is not written in stone. For every environmental woe there is an environmental win. As you read these words, there are cities banning plastic bags, countries signing into law aggressive emissions standards, and globally, the rate of growth for renewable energy is outpacing fossil energy. This summer our office decided that we could do something more to improve the campus footprint and so we launched an agricultural demonstration project. This is not new idea. McGill and Ryerson are two institutions that already grow food on campus and reap the benefits. A little known fact; gro...

It’s Canadian Environment Week, and here at the Office of Sustainable Development  we thought it was important to address the issue of biodiversity in the Ottawa area. Today, we are meeting Rosana, a uOttawa student who is currently doing her Master’s in biology. She explains to us why a great deal of her studies presently is ... chasing butterflies! Office of Campus Sustainability : What is your Master’s about ? Rosana : I’m looking at the response of butterflies to the interacting effect of climate change and habitat fragmentation. I want to see how the interaction of these two forces causes changes in butterfly species richness and distribution over time. I also want to predict the future, and determine extinction rates as a result of the combined effects of these two forces. OFC : How do you catch the butterflies you’re using for your research ? Rosana : We go to predetermined study sites around Ottawa. If we see a butterfly, we catch it with a net. We have a fiel...