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...

So 2013 has come and gone, but not without some pretty cool sustainability things happening at the University of Ottawa. The year started out with some great news about uOttawa being recognized as the 14th most sustainable university in the world by the UI Green Metric World University Rankings . This was some welcome news after all the hard work that was accomplished by the staff and volunteers at the Office of Campus Sustainability . The Food Services contract was up for renewal and this year marked the first year under a new contract that required much more stringent adherence to sustainable practices. This includes more local food, more recycling, and more promotion about green products, just to name a few. This led to two interesting initiatives in 2013. The first was the push to donate more food to charities rather than throwing it out. The second was the push to become a Fair Trade campus , thereby rendering all the non franchised coffee on campus Fair Trade Certifie...

In 2011 there were a lot of positive things going for the campus in terms of campus sustainability. Some setbacks for sure, but I would like to think more positives than negatives. Here is the whirlwind tour of what the office accomplished in 2011. CULTURE The year started on a high note with the Vision 2020 process, which included an entire pillar dedicated to becoming a more environmentally sustainable campus . Unfortunately by the end of the year the Destination 2020 plan (which was the implementation phase of the visioning exercise) had dropped campus sustainability as a priority. Another setback came with the Fair Trade Campus Certification. Brought forth by students with the uOttawa chapter of Engineers Without Borders, the certification is a program created by FairTrade Canada  to get campuses to offer more fair trade selection. The program started out very strong in the Spring but slowed down in the fall as issues related to the variety of coffees available as fai...

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...