Dalhousie's New Academic building. Mark Teo photo.
Dalhousie gets a B for sustainability
Climate change and energy are among Dal's major sustainability issues.
(0)According to an evaluation ranking North American universities, Dalhousie University’s overall GPA in sustainability stands at about 3.0 – or a B grade.
The College Sustainability Report Card, released last week, is an assessment conducted by the Sustainable Endowments Institute, a non-profit organization that focus on campus sustainability issues. They grade more than 300 colleges and universities in Canada and the US.
Of the 17 Canadian schools assessed, Dal’s B ranking was a middle-of-the-pack grade. It received A’s in administration, investment, food and recycling and student involvement. Dal received a D in climate change and energy – a figure it says it would like to improve for next year’s ranking.
Lack of emissions reporting
Rochelle Owens, Dal’s Director of Sustainability, called the assessment “accurate” – though it focused most heavily on building operations.
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Sustain Dal's Maggie Lovett. Mark Teo photo.
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Canadian Green Report Card Score
- University of Alberta: B+
- University of British Columbia: B+
- McGill University: B+
- University of New Brunswick: B
- University of Toronto: B
- Carleton University: B-
- Queen's University: B-
- University of Saskatchewan: C+
- McMaster University: C+
- University of Western Ontario: C
- University of Waterloo: D+
Dal hadn’t completed a greenhouse gas emissions report for its buildings when the Green Report Card profiled them.
“They measure what you’ve done,” said Owens, adding that the report doesn’t factor in the school’s future plans.
A spokesperson for Sustain Dal, the school’s largest student environmental advocacy group, agrees that the report is fair and says the school is positioning itself to improve.
“[The report] is based on having a full-scale audit of your university, knowing what your emissions are,” said Maggie Lovett, 21, a third year biology student.
She says that once the school has measured its emissions, they can follow up with a plan of action.
And that’s exactly what it's done.
Dal’s Office of Sustainability released a report measuring greenhouse gas emissions earlier this month. The report states Dal spews 110,000 metric tonnes of eCO2, with the most coming from purchased electricity and on-campus heating.
Owens says Dal will have a strategy complete in November rethinking campus energy, retrofitting old buildings and changing on-campus attitudes. It's now hoping to reduce emissions by up to 58 per cent by 2020.
Green buildings a start
Part of the plan is already in effect, namely the building of LEED certified green buildings – such as the New Academic building, which includes a solar wall panel, and the Clinical Research building.
But Professor Steven Mannell, the director of Dal’s College of Sustainability, says that energy and emissions-friendly buildings are just a start. While each building’s efficiency is important, we must take into account total operations.
“What hasn’t been tracked well – in any auditing – is collateral emissions,” he says. “It’s not only how you operate your campus, but how people get there.”
And for Dal’s campus, he says, the number of people who live close to campus is among the highest in the country. And for emissions controlling, that’s a good thing.
“There are high proportions of people who use public or active transportation here.”
Students doing their part
Along with the school’s effort to reduce the carbon footprint, its student body also has plenty of options for environmentally aware students.
The school offers Tuppy Thursdays –a locally-sourced lunch offered to students who bring their own Tupperware – and Muggy Mondays, which encourages students to bring reusable mugs to school.
Further, Dalhousie has student groups such as Sustain Dal and Campus Action on Food, and it offers environmentally conscious course options through the College of Sustainability.
Dal also launched the Rethink Campus Sustainability Campaign Oct. 22, which aims to change the habits of students in baby steps by encouraging students to turn off unused lights, conserving heat on campus and printing paper on both sides.
Students are hoping that, with these changes, Dal fares better on next year’s Green Report Card.
“I think that next year we’ll see a lot of improvement,” said Lovett.
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