Wow, these past couple of days have been crazy busy. On Tuesday September 4th we launched our special International Students edition of the Free Store. We do this every year to help give international students a leg up on getting the things they need to start out their lives here in Ottawa. Also, we like to make freegans happy. Saying that it was successful would be an understatement. I think I counted about 200 people on the first day before I stopped keeping track. We easy gave away 2 to 3 tonnes of stuff over the course of the two days and I have to tell you that the experience was exhausting. Needless to say I am very proud of the volunteers who came out to lend a hand. And I also want to give a special shout out to our partners (the International Office and Community Life Services) for their continued support. The Free Store is important for a couple of reasons. First, it diverts tonnes of waste from landfill every year. Second, it demonstrates...

Unfortunately the day has come and we have retired our Foursquare account. Things were good while they lasted but now we have to go. The Office of Campus Sustainability will no longer be using Foursquare as a geo-location tool. There are couple of reasons why we are leaving the service (none of which have anything to do with the service provided by Foursquare... they are pretty awesome) but we will still be Green Maps as a tool to map sustainability on campus. Thank you to all the folks out there that contributed to our Foursquare account and who shared our tips. We really do appreciate your interest and we hope to see you again in another social media life. In the meantime, we will be transferring our sustainability 'check-in' tips and lists to the University of Ottawa's main Foursquare account. So don't worry, none of the information will be lost. The Office has had a Green Map account for many years and we hope to soon be launching new features and m...

Yesterday I had the chance to give a presentation to the new Health Promotions ambassadors. The whole thing took place in Terminus and I think things went pretty well. My job was to explain to the group why sustainability was important for the campus and why it was important for one's personal health. In turn, those ambassadors would spread the word around campus over the course of the year (no doubt during the many many many events that they participate in). There are a couple of themes that are really easy to link to health, like food and water. And of course there are a couple that aren't so easy, like energy management and green space. I did my best to fill in those blanks. For example, energy management is directly related to green house gas emissions and air quality. The more energy we burn, the more stuff we dump into the atmosphere, the worse our air quality. Poor air quality leads to a tonne of horrible health effects. Green space and nature deficit dis...

"Knock knock" "Who's there?" "Green rep" "Green Rep who?" "No seriously dude, turn off the light when you go to bed. You're wasting energy. And while you're at it, milk cartons go into the plastics recycling bin... not the paper one." They say that university is one of the big turning points in life. While in university you will likely pick up a lot of the habits and skills that you will carry with for the rest of your life. Fact checking and proper sourcing for sure, but what about those habits that will help our society become more sustainable? There are a tonne of environmental issues out there. I could dedicate the rest of this blog post to them and you wouldn't finish reading until early tomorrow morning. But I can sum up the majority of them with two simple words, 'resource consumption'. The more stuff you use, the more stuff we need to make, the more resources get drained, etc. But did you k...

So you are coming to the University of Ottawa this fall and you want to be as green as humanly possible. Okay, well I am actually certain that this is one of the last things on your mind, with all the panicked packing and trying to squeeze out a couple of more summer moments with the friends and family. But I thought that I might give you a couple of tips for when you get to campus. We are Bottled Water Free here so don't freak out when you get to the caf or the Pivik and start searching around frantically. To facilitate this transition into your new bottled water free lifestyle, the SFUO puts reusable water canteens in every 101 Kit. And if you didn't get a kit, stop by the SFUO's Sustainability Centre and they'll fix you up with a canteen for free. A lot of you are new to Ottawa and are going to bring a bunch of luggage. Pack light ! You are going to be inundated with a tonne of swag and free "stuff". You will have memorabilia coming out the wazoo. S...

Cher (e) candidat (e), je me présente, je m’appelle Katherine et suis la coordonnatrice au développement durable que tu espères remplacer en septembre. Je quitte, le coeur lourd, ce poste que j’aurai occupé un peu plus d’un an. J’ai tout d’abord commencé ici en travaillant sur le rapport STARS, mais fus transférée au poste de communications avec joie. Par la suite, ce poste est vraiment trippant, stimulant et exigeant à la fois. Qui aurait cru que passer du temps sur Twitter ferait partie de ma description de tâche?  Je me suis également occupée de l’e-bulletin mensuel, de faire de la promotion d’événements sur Facebook, ai rencontré des bénévoles sympathiques et traduit des textes jusqu’à ce que je ne puisse plus différencier l’anglais du français. J’ai aussi dû me creuser les méninges à plusieurs reprises afin de pouvoir explorer des styles d’écritures variés pour le site internet et les courriels aux bénévoles. De plus, on ne sait jamais ce qui pourrait arriver au burea...

C’est le temps de l’année; les déménagements…soit vous aménagez dans une résidence (pour la première fois plus chez ses parents!), ou dans votre premier appartement; soit vous changez tout simplement d’appartement ou de maison. Bref, tous ces cas nous encouragent à acheter toutes sortes de belles choses pour décorer notre nouvel espace (je l’admets, j’ai moi-même succombé au catalogue Ikéa une fois ou deux lors de mon premier aménagement en appartement). 8 fois sur 10, ces articles ne sont pas chers, et malheureusement, ne sont pas durables pour plus d’un déménagement…je le sais, mes beaux meubles ne se sont pas bien assemblés lors de mon premier déménagement, et même moins lors du deuxième – mes vêtements tombent à travers les tiroirs et les tapis sont déchiffrés! De plus, et je suis certaine que vous l’avez tous vécu, lorsqu’on vit en colocataire (spécialement avec plus d’une personne)…nos colocataires nous laisse toutes sortes de petits trésors lorsqu’ils déménagent une sema...

J’adore communiquer. Que ce soit à travers Twitter, Facebook ou même par courriel. Heureusement, ces médias sociaux font partie de mes tâches ici au bureau du développement durable. Malheureusement, les petites jasettes en personne sont plutôt rares, car la plupart des étudiants préfèrent travailler ou voyager pendant l’été, plutôt que de nous rendre visite. Parfois, par contre, j’aurai bien envie de pouvoir m’exprimer en plus de 140 caractères. On s’entend que ça limite un peu! Mais on dirait que je ne suis pas la seule à préférer une voix humaine aux ordinateurs, car nous avons maintenant un podcast chaque semaine! Oui oui! Brigitte et moi vous jasons chaque mercredi matin pendant une dizaine de minutes à partir du studio du CHUO. Fermez les yeux et ce sera comme si Deux écolos et un micro étaient dans votre salon! Pendant nos dix minutes de gloire, nous jasons de trucs ayant à trait au campus : des événements trippants, des projets écolos, ainsi que des conseils pratiques. À ...

Welcome to the University of Ottawa. You can't imagine how happy we are to have you with us here on campus. I think you will really like what we have here to offer you, but secretly we are just as excited about what you are going to give us. It is hard for me to sum up the campus in just a few words so you are going to have to bare with me. This is a wonderful place to learn and grow. The people are friendly, the greenery is deep, and the buildings echo with  history. The people here are very proud and very vocal. The community is a mix of French and English Canadians, with a dash of international students from all around. So don't be surprised if you hear the songs of peoples from around the globe as they whiz past you. Here you will find knowledge and a community willing to discuss it. And as the years go by, as you grow taller and as you grow wiser. You will come to know the cycles of the campus. You will see rambunctious youth crowd onto the streets and sing s...

Sometimes it is really cool how the little things can add up to make a big difference. Take light bulbs for instance. Last year we found out that there was a new type of fluorescent light bulb on the market that uses about 25 watts instead of 32 watts. (sarcastic voice) "Biiiiggggg deal right, 6 watts... what an amazing technology!" And I would normally agree with you because 6 watts isn't that  much. But.... in this case it is 19%. And did I mention that we replaced 80,000 light bulbs around the campus, including our satellite campuses at 200 Lees and Roger Guidon. That means that we were able to shed 480,000 watts (or 460kW). So what does 460kW mean? Well it means that the University was able to save over $190,000 (assuming that the lamps are only on for 10 hours a day - 3,600hours x 6 watts = 21.6kWh per year x 80,000lamps x $0.11 = $190,800/year). The project was completed in 6 months and has a 2 year payback -  good economics...

Every year, students in the ENV 1101 course go about conducting surveys and collecting a massive amount of data about sustainability related activities on campus (all part of the Community Service Learning program). And every year, the Office of Campus Sustainability (mostly just Merissa actually), compiles that data and analyzes the results. There are many fun tidbits that we siphon from the data, including that this years findings seem to indicate that cycling is on the rise at the University of Ottawa. In our surveys we ask the very simple question "do you bike to campus?" and offer a variety of possible answers. In 2011, the number of people that "occasionally bike" or "always bike" was 25%. This year that number has risen to 31%. The largest increase was in the number of people who "always bike" to campus (rising from 7% in 2011 to 19% in 2012). Granted that these are self reported numbers and granted that the surveys are conducted by...

So the federal government just announced that they are half way to reaching their Copenhagen emissions goal this week. (You can read the CBC article here ). Not bad.... not bad at all. But unfortunately not good enough. The energy and environment engineers here at uOttawa also just finished crunching some numbers this week. The result, our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are the lowest we have ever recorded - basically since 1974. DATA So let's deconstruct some of the numbers. In 1974, our direct GHG emissions were 27,223 tonnes. (*direct emissions mean everything that we burn here on campus like natural gas, oil, fuel in our cars, etc.) In 2011, our direct GHG emissinos were 15,556 tonnes, a 43% reduction. KYOTO Under Canada's Kyoto obligations, uOttawa would have had to reduced its total emissions by 6% of 1990 levels by 2012. (*total emissions include everything you burn and all the emissions associated with the electricity you use). In the 1990's our t...

I had just finished grade 11, and it turned out I only had twenty hours of community service completed – a far cry from the forty hours necessary to graduate from high school. I was not in the ideal position here. How was I going to get twenty volunteer hours in one year when that’s how many I collected over three years? So I decided it was time to get down and dedicate this summer to finishing my hours. But I wanted to do it in style, volunteer someplace cool, someplace where only a privileged few could say they volunteered. I thought the best place to look for such an opportunity would be at the University of Ottawa, especially since I plan to come here in the near future. After talking to a few people and sending a few emails, I landed up in the Office of Campus Sustainability. The project: create a map of the campus highlighting all the features and services accessible to persons with disabilities. My job: go through the campus and note down some of these features and servic...

Gardens have so many benefits that we often forget about some of them. For me one of the biggest benefits of gardening, and a reason why I am so hooked, is the amazing feeling it gives me: Stress relieving.  I have one garden in pots at home, I have a plot in the community garden, and I help take care of the Sustainability Centre’s teaching plot. I am actually looking into planting at my friend’s house and my mom’s yard, plus I spend time helping some other friends with their gardens. Anyways, I just cannot get enough of gardening.  And I am not the only one talking about the stress relieving benefits. “A recent study in the Netherlands suggests that gardening can fight stress even better than other relaxing leisure activities. After completing a stressful task, two groups of people were instructed to either read indoors or garden for 30 minutes. Afterward, the group that gardened reported being in a better mood than the reading group, and they also had lower lev...

This is killing me. A couple of years ago I read about this lady at UBC who is magically able to make her office paperless - you can check out the article for yourself. Of course I become instantly green with envy (you like what I just did right there). I must have a paperless office too! I mean, if there is an office at the University of Ottawa that is going to be the first to become paperless.... why not our office? A couple of years later and reality of still kicking us in the gut. My desk is still a monument to paper. And so is everyone else's actually. There are a couple of hard truths that I have been ignoring. 1- I work with engineers and architects and so there is a whole lot of paper lovin' going on here (blueprints) 2- We don't have super modern equipment here... no I-Pads in every corner 3- Almost everyone here is over 50 so the ageist part of me wants to lay the blame on old school thinking Beyond that, there are also a couple of things that I ...