Photo credit: Jonathan Rausseo You are probably going to hear a lot about this over the next couple of weeks. Now I am not sure if you remember this from previous years but when it comes to RecycleMania, we a re kind of a big deal. Here's the skinny, RecycleMania is an international recycling competition between universities and colleges. Everyone submits their recycling numbers over the 10 week challenge (from January to March) and the organizers rank all the participants. In the past 2 years, uOttawa has emerged as the undisputed Canadian champions. Internationally we placed 14th (out of ~300) last year and we are looking to three-peat. The reason that RecycleMania is so important to us is simple, we want to get to zero waste. Take a look at the graphic above. Since 1987 the University has actually reduced its waste production by over 60%. In 2009, the amount of recyclables produced and the amount of waste generated were the same (a 50% diversion rate). In the past few years the ...

Photo Credit: storyofstuff.com RecycleMania approacheth! Placing as Canada’s top university last year, with a total recycling rate of 52.78%, University of Ottawa is preparing for another successful year. The competition begins on January 15th and ends on March 27th, the first two weeks being “trial” weeks. Keep an eye out for events running around campus and get involved! Challenge a friend, roommate or even a residence floor in a waste-reduction and recycling contest. Take the winner(s) out for a beer (just make sure the bottle is recycled). RecycleMania provides competition as a motivation to reduce waste and increase recycling efforts across campus and hopefully into student’s homes. It may be emphasized especially for this one part of the year but the habits should be practiced beyond the competition. Conspicuous consumption is an obvious problem during the holiday season; malls are filled with people who cannot wait to spend money and buy gifts. And now that the joyous season is ...

Photo Credit: gmvolt.com I’ve read several articles over the past little while that are hailing 2011 as the Year of the Electric Car (this one, in particular: chevy volt ). I find that a pretty bold statement to make, seeing as how most experts have been emphasizing how much more work needs to be done to make our society decrease our gas dependence. I guess your opinion is heavily dependent on who you work for, too. Personally, though I think that we possess the technology and ability to make this year a breakthrough, we are still much too dependent on gas and our current comfortable way of life to make such a drastic change. Yes, electric vehicles aren’t exactly new, per se, but given the current circumstances, the surge predicted to occur in 2011 doesn’t really convince me. A primary issue in making this happen, as the case is in quite a few situations, is awareness. A large majority of people will be satisfied with receiving second-hand, filtered information & rumours, rather t...

Photo credit: Jonathan Rausseo So coming off one of the best year's that we have ever had at the Office of Campus Sustainability we decided that we want to do better. But how can you do better if you don't know what the people want. That's where this post comes in. Last year was the first year that we serious dove into the social media realm (check out our Facebook infographic above detailing the success of our fan page). We decided that we needed to meet the community on their terms. Our social media sites ( Twitter , Facebook , Flickr , and Green Maps ) allow us to keep in contact with the community while creating an online scrapbook of our activities and initiatives. But we can do more. The tools can be used to create a dialogue with the community. Not just us pumping the information in one direction, but also allowing the community to tell us what they think and how they feel about the things that we are doing. I'll give you an example, if we launch a new recycling ...

Photo credit: Merissa Mueller Hello! The first week of 2011 has come to a close and I have come to the conclusion that this year is going to be a great year for environmental sustainability on campus. The Office of Sustainability is working hard toward new projects and improving old ones that will continue the process of greening our campus. If you would like to see some of the progress they have made the past year, check out the annual report from 2010. This report provides tonnes of information about campus sustainability initiatives and has personally made me proud to be a University of Ottawa student. As a student you are always told to get involved, and when it comes to saving your planet, this is also true. Whether it is your own personal green goals or joining a campus group, there are many ways to help reduce waste, energy and water usage in your community. I have made my own goals this year, and I am now a member of the Office of Sustainability, which will allow me to pla...

Photo Credit: Jonathan Rausseo A couple of months ago I blogged about the surveys that were being conducted in Eric Crighton's Environmental Studies course ( Love and Surveys ). For those of you that didn't read it here is the Cole Note's summary... students conducted over 2,000 surveys about environmental issues on campus. This was part of the Experiential Learning Program. As the results begin to role in I thought that I might take the time to tell you about the recommendations that were made. Each student was asked to only do the surveys, but also include a series of recommendations about how to improve the campus based on their surveys. The results are in... Most people recommended that we needed more bins (228). Another 107 recommendations were made to produce more information. 63 people wanted more online content, etcetera. All the big recommendations have been highlighted in the nifty chart up above. They cover everything from recycling to green space to paper consu...

Photo credit: Jonathan Rausseo *Click on image for a larger view I know we are now in 2011 but I did want to take a quick look back to 2010. It turns out 2010 was in fact a great year for sustainability on campus (see the last post: Once Upon a Time...), but there will always be more challenges to face. I was walking through the office today and I overheard some of the office students talking about space on campus. Okay... maybe I was eavesdropping but that's besides the point. We got into a little conversation about the campus space crunch. On one side having a compact campus is good because it helps us use our space more efficiently. On the side, a crowded campus means that there always seems to be a lack of space to so things. As the campus population grows this problem is going to get worse before it gets better. The University can only build a certain number of new spaces at a time. And with the increase in space comes an increase in resource consumption (more energy, more wa...

Photo credit: Jonathan Rausseo I know we are now in 2011 but I did want to take a quick look back to 2010. It turns out 2010 was in fact a great year for sustainability on campus (see the last post: Once Upon a Time...), but there will always be more challenges to face. I was walking through the office today and I overheard some of the office students talking about space on campus. Okay... maybe I was eavesdropping but that's besides the point. We got into a little conversation about the campus space crunch. On one side having a compact campus is good because it helps us use our space more efficiently. On the side, a crowded campus means that there always seems to be a lack of space to so things. As the campus population grows this problem is going to get worse before it gets better. The University can only build a certain number of new spaces at a time. And with the increase in space comes an increase in resource consumption (more energy, more water, more garbage). In 2010 we rea...

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...