Western graded C- in sustainability report

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By Heather Travis
Friday, October 3, 2008
The University of Western Ontario barely received a passing grade in a U.S.-based evaluation of sustainability and endowment practices at university and college campuses across Canada and the United States.
 
Western was graded a C- in the study conducted by the Sustainable Endowments Institute, a non-profit organization in Cambridge, Mass., which included colleges and universities with the 300 largest endowments in the two countries.  
 
The schools were marked on sustainability measures in nine categories: administration, climate change & energy, food & recycling, green building, student involvement, transportation, endowment transparency, investment priorities and shareholder engagement.  
 
The results, released last week, were published in the College Sustainability Report Card. The highest grade was A-; however the average overall grade was a C+.  
 
Gitta Kulczycki, Vice-President (Resources & Operations), says Western’s low grade is “a measure of a work in progress.  
 
“I know we are newly involved in pushing this forward and a C- is a reflection of that,” she says. “I am not discouraged.”  
 
The university’s sustainability efforts have gained momentum over the past 18 months and Western has taken many academic, research and operational initiatives to make the campus greener, she adds.
 
“We’ve got lots to do, we know that. I think it’s important to put that in perspective in terms of what our goal is in moving forward.”  
 
This is also the first year Western has participated in the report card.  
 
The recent opening of the Biotron Experimental Climate Change Research Centre, as well as development of Western’s first green building – the Claudette MacKay-Lassonde Pavilion – demonstrate a commitment to sustainability, she says. In addition, Physical Plant department recently launched a website listing the various sustainability programs and research across campus.  
 
Future building and renovation projects will be LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified, she adds. In the near future, the university will be forming an ad hoc committee of operating staff, researchers, faculty, students and administration to will examine Western’s sustainability priorities.  
 
“As time passes, we’ll continue to see ourselves move forward on the sustainability front,” she says. “We’ve got to put it into perspective … then look at these other areas and see what direction we want to head to.”
 
Western received its lowest grades in the areas of endowment transparency and shareholder engagement, both receiving an F. However, Kulczycki says these have not been included in Western’s talks on sustainability issues in the past.
 
She also wants to take a closer look at the measuring stick for the climate change & energy category, which has been an area of improvement in recent months. Western has mainly focused on greening its operations, such as improving sustainability measures in food services and recycling programs, which are areas that scored highly in the report, notes Kulczycki.  
 
Although Kulczycki says Western can learn from the report and from what other universities are doing, she does not see the low grade as dictating the future of Western’s sustainability strategy.
 
“I don’t want to plan to the test,” she says. “We’ve got to approach sustainability based on what we see, as an organization, are the right things for us to do.”  
 
Not everyone thought the report offered constructive criticism.
 
Will Bortolin, coordinator for the campus group EnviroWestern, calls the report “utterly invalid.”
 
“I think they are trying to judge how sustainable we are, or how good we are in student involvement, based on publicity information,” he says.
 
Although Kulczycki says Western willingly provided information to the study coordinators, Bortolin feels some efforts of student involvement might have been overlooked.  
 
The report gave student involvement a C grade and EnviroWestern is cited as being “an extremely important force for sustainable change on campus.”
 
“I don’t have a problem with people being critical of the things we are doing … but the way they’ve carried this out is seen as a joke,” he says.  
 
Membership in EnviroWestern is more than 1,200 students, which has grown exponentially from 150 members three years ago, says Bortolin. 
Although he recognizes Western can do better to make the campus greener, he feels the university – especially its students – should have been given more credit for what it has done to date.
 
“To imply that students aren’t involved is a joke,” he says.  
 
View the sustainability report card at www.greenreportcard.org.
 
 
 

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