Articles from:June 2018

• Congratulations to the Master of Sustainability Class of 2018

  Thursday, June 07, 2018 | By Amanda Smits

  

  Pictured from left to right: Dr. Gary Pickering, Ashton Govan, Nicholas Fischer, Meghan Birbeck, Gala Muñoz-Carrier, Caitlin Garner, Tyler Prince, and Dr. Marilyne Jollineau.  

  On Tuesday, June 5, 2018, the Sustainability Science and Society (SSAS) graduate program celebrated the graduation of six students.

  The Environmental Sustainability Research Centre (ESRC) would like to extend congratulations to our newest Master of Sustainability graduates. The 2018 graduating class included: Meghan Birbeck, Caitlin Garner, Ashton Govan, Nicholas Fischer, Gala Muñoz-Carrier, and Tyler Prince.

  The ESRC would also like to congratulate Nicholas Fischer, who was named the 2018 recipient of the Distinguished Graduate Student Award – Sustainability Science and Society for achieving the highest overall average in the program.

  “This diverse group of graduate students is particularly special to me since they were admitted into our program while I was Graduate Program Director of SSAS. I have had a unique opportunity to work with them in a variety of contexts along their journey towards graduation. It was an honour to witness the conferring of their degree of Master of Sustainability earlier this week. Their hard work has had impact on scholarship, the environment, and on different communities in Canada, including the Niagara Region. This is an important milestone in their lives and I am extremely proud of them,” says Dr. Marilyne Jollineau Graduate Program Director of SSAS.

  “I am confident that these individuals will continue to make a positive impact on society and the environment as they pursue their future goals. We wish them all great success in their future endeavours!”

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• Ready, Set, Charge!

  Thursday, June 07, 2018 | By Amanda Smits

  Blog Contributor: Shelby McFadden

  

  Photo: Electric vehicle charging station located at the Brock University International Centre.

  We have exciting news to share, as Brock was just approved for the installation of 10 new level 2 electric vehicle charging stations, which are to be installed by November 2018. Brock was generously given $75,000 through the Ontario Government’s Workplace Electric Vehicle Charging Incentive Program to carry out the project.

  To date, Brock has three electric chargers on campus, all of which are used frequently. The first charging station was installed at International Centre in 2013, through the partial gifting from Sun Country Highway. Then in 2016, two additional stations were added. There is one charger at the Central Utilities Building, and one in Lot H behind the tower.

  These chargers are available to be used by the Brock community, but also by people in the community and visitors to the Niagara Region. Currently, these chargers are free to use for permit holders, with non-permit holders only needing to pay a small amount for parking.

  With the student population sitting at around 18,000 students, and electric vehicles rising in popularity, these new charging stations will make it easier to accommodate electric vehicles on campus.

  This is really exciting, especially as someone who hopes to buy her own electric vehicle one day soon.

  While not perfect, electric vehicles have less impacts on the environment, as the only emissions are associated with electricity production, which is less of an issue with coal having been phased out in Ontario. By driving an electric vehicle, the average Canadian can reduce their car’s gas emissions by 60 to 90% (Plug ‘N Drive, n.d).

  This is a step in the right direction for helping to reach Brock’s emission reduction target of 20% by 2023.

  I am personally quite excited to see these chargers pop up around campus in the upcoming months, and am looking forward to future initiatives contributing to sustainability on campus.

  References:

  Plug ‘N Drive. (n.d). Electric vehicle benefits. Retrieved from https://www.plugndrive.ca/electric-vehicle-benefits/

  Categories: Blog, Innovative Partnership, Student Contributor, Sustainability at Brock

• Master of Sustainability Students takes the lead in Brock-Lincoln Living Lab

  Tuesday, June 05, 2018 | By Amanda Smits

  Blog Contributor: Lydia Collas

  Each year, Master of Sustainability enrolled in the co-op stream undertake a projects course where they work as a team to provide a consultancy-type service to an external business or an area of the Canadian Government. This year, Ben House, Yuka Kataoka, Zach MacMillan, and Salima Medouar worked with the Town of Lincoln in association with the Brock-Lincoln Living Lab that was set up last year. I met up with Zach to find out more about what his team had got up to and what they’d learnt from the experience.

  

  Photo: SSAS Student Presentations in SSAS 5P03 (from left to right) Salima Medouar, Leaya Amey, Zach MacMillan, Ben House, Yuka Kataoka, Quratulain Shahzad, and Sylvia Hussein

   1. So working with the Town of Lincoln, what was the project you were tasked with?

  Our team worked to create a sustainability needs assessment for the Town. This document will be used to highlight focus areas for the subsequent stages of the Brock-Lincoln Living Lab. As we began communicating with the project sponsor, it became apparent that there would be more value in creating a detailed inventory of the Town’s assets relating to sustainability. Such assets are anything that contributes to achieving the Town’s long-term sustainability goals and include local policies, physical structures, natural resources, social resources, and economic institutions.

  2. How did you go about achieving that?

  The first step in the project was to create a framework that we could use to organize our data. We used the Town of Lincoln’s sustainability initiative to highlight four key asset areas that influence sustainability: Natural, Social, Economic, and Built. Each member of the team was in charge of one of the areas based on their interests and experiences. I was both the lead on built assets as well as the project manager for the team.

  Once we had an outlined framework and clear roles for the project we went to Town Hall to retrieve that data we needed. We were also fortunate enough to communicate with Town employees who had specific insights on the four asset areas, which helped us get multiple perspectives on the project. We then synthesized all the material and included it in a final report along with some recommendations for future work, which we presented to both members of Lincoln (including senior management) and the Brock University ESRC.

   3. What did you learn about project management as a result?

  This project demonstrated the importance of creating a detailed yet manageable timeline for projects, particularly when you’ve got multiple commitments to fulfil. I also learned the importance of forming a strong team and drawing on the strengths of each member. While I was the official project manager for the project we took a collaborative approach that allowed each of our skill sets to be utilized to the fullest – an approach I plan to use in future projects.

  4. So how did it go – did you achieve what you set out to?

  Yes, I believe we did achieve our project goals. By the end of the six weeks, we had created a 30-page document which outlined a wide variety of assets that are important to the Town’s sustainability goals. Combining all this information into one document will be very helpful for the next stage of the Brock-Lincoln Living lab.

  5. What do you think the impact of your work will be?

  In the municipal setting, sustainability is an important, though oft misunderstood, concept. This project will help to provide consensus on the topic. The integrated framework that we used will help the Town to move away from understanding sustainability in silos and move toward an integrated approach to sustainability planning. It also creates a strong foundation for future work on the Brock-Lincoln Living lab and the Town more generally. Mainly this project helps the Town to begin incorporating a new perspective on everyday tasks. It also demonstrated that sustainability in this context is more diverse than simply environmental planning.

  6. This course is a bit different to the others that you take as part of the program, how do you feel it has complemented your other studies?

  This course was a perfect complement to the program. Being given the opportunity to implement our knowledge of sustainability into a real organization as a core program requirement is invaluable. It helped me to learn and refine skills, such as project planning and communicating with community stakeholders, and provided an important network opportunity – all of which will help me to secure employment after completing my degree. I am particularly interested in municipal planning: my Major Research Paper will evaluate municipal planning documents and my future career goals lie in the planning profession, so I was very fortunate to work on this project.

  Finally, I’d like to thank some people that we would have been lost without. Carrie Beatty from the Town of Lincoln gave her time and advice during each stage of the project and her genuine interest in incorporating sustainability in the municipal setting was truly valuable. I would also like to thank Dr. Bradley May for offering project management expertise to the team.

  Congratulations to Zach, Yuka, Ben and Salima on completing an informative project that has paved the way for the future work undertaken as part of the Brock-Lincoln Living Lab.  To find out more about the Living Lab, visit brocku.ca/esrc/brock-lincoln-living-lab/. For more information about the Master of Sustainability degree program, visit brocku.ca/ssas.

  Categories: Blog, Experiential Education, Innovative Partnership, SSAS Student Contributor

• Sustainability Committee Workshop

  Friday, June 01, 2018 | By Amanda Smits

  Blog Contributor: Kaitlin James

  The Brock Sustainability Coordinating Committee serves as a forum for discussion of sustainability related information, practices, actions and initiatives, with a goal to enhance and promote sustainability at Brock.

  Today we had our first sustainability committee workshop of the new year. It was great to meet everyone and hear about all of the different initiatives going on across the university campus. Bringing together such a diverse group of individuals is integral to be able to facilitate and sustain sustainability campus wide, and allowed for an all-encompassing, active discussion of what we would like the future of sustainability to look like at Brock, including potential challenges in implementation.

  Myself and the other summer interns were excited to share with the group what we have been doing over the last couple of weeks and engaged in meaningful conversation to help build our list of current initiatives taking place across campus, ensuring that our list is as comprehensive as possible. It was great to see all that is being done across the school to make steps towards a more sustainable campus. I’m excited to see what the future of sustainability at Brock has in store for us!

  To learn more about Sustainability at Brock visit: brocku.ca/sustainability

  Categories: Blog, Student Contributor, Sustainability at Brock