In Context: 5 Web Perspectives On A Story In The News

The Green Campus

(Halifax Metro) Cape Breton University is set to become the first university in Canada with its own windmill. The university’s board of governors voted unanimously to partner with a local company, Cape Breton Explorations Ltd., to build the university’s windmill. The project will cost $1.7 million and will generate 30 per cent of the university’s power. CBU will sell the electricity to Nova Scotia Power at a fixed rate for the 15 years of the agreement. 

1.

How other universities stack up

The Endowments Institute
The institute has a wealth of information about the sustainability of 300 universities in both the U.S. and Canada. The institute defines sustainability as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” The report rates factors such as energy use, food and recycling, student involvement and transportation. There is a section of the website that defines specifically what each category means. The report gives a summary of what the school is doing in each category along with a grade.  The project gets funding from a number of private foundations. 

2.

How sustainable is your campus?

University Leaders for a Sustainable Future
This group is a consortium of university presidents and other administrators gathered to be the secretariat for universities that signed the Talloires declaration in 1990. The U.N. declaration is meant to make universities around the world more sustainable. 350 university presidents worldwide have signed the declaration. The group offers a questionnaire for administrators to see how sustainable their campus is. There is also a resources section with links to universities around the world with sustainability programs in place.

3.

Green products and how to identify them

Ecologo
Ecologo is a Canadian group concerned with labelling environmentally friendly products. It has information about the sustainability of products ranging from basketball nets to batteries. The site has 250 different product categories with literally thousands of different products. The site also shows the criteria by which a product is judged to be sustainable. The criteria are highly technical and highly detailed. Environment Canada funds the program. TerraChoice Environment Marketing Inc., a private company, administers it. The group also gives out awards to companies and universities that use sustainable products. 

4.

Making sustainability fun

Acadia Eco-Olympics
Throughout November Acadia University students will participate in a series of challenges to raise awareness about sustainability on campus. At the moment the site has little in the way of information. When the contest gets going it will have details about the challenges and how successful the campaign was at raising awareness. 

5.

Why go sustainable?

Sustainable campus group
Florida-based Sustainable Campus has a huge amount of information on sustainable campuses and why we need them. The site uses graphs and statistics to make the case for sustainable campuses. Under the Action section is a list of issues with extensive links to resources about how to make everything from buildings to water use sustainable. There are also links to schools that already have sustainable campus programs in place. The amount and breadth of information on the site is impressive if not a little daunting.