Innovative Partnership

• Exciting Scholarship Opportunity for Brock’s Environmental Sustainability students!

  Wednesday, June 20, 2018 | By Amanda Smits

  By: Shanen D’Souza

  

  Photo: Cheque presentation by ToromontCAT representatives to Scott Johnstone, AVP Facilities Management and Dr.Ingrid Makus, Dean of FOSS at the reopening of Theal House in February 2018.

  The Environmental Sustainability Research Centre (ESRC) along with Brock Facilities Management is offering $5,000 in scholarships for the upcoming year! ToromontCAT Construction donated these funds to the University to encourage and foster sustainability education and research at Brock.

  For students enrolled in the Master of Sustainability program, three scholarships of $1,000 each will be awarded to students in good academic standing. The three designations are as follows: one current student in Scheme A, one current student in Scheme B and one incoming student who will begin studies in the Fall of 2018. For students who have declared a Minor in Environmental Sustainability, two scholarships of $1,000 each will be awarded to students in good academic standing.

  For more information on the scholarships and applications please visit our website.

  This scholarship is another indicator of the quality research and education that is carried out through these Environmental Sustainability courses. It also displays Brock’s commitment to becoming a national leader in sustainability, while striving to create beneficial educational opportunities for its students. According to Ryan Plummer, Professor and Director of the ESRC, these scholarships recognize as well as support excellence in Environmental Sustainability.

  Applications include an essay question to be answered in 1500 words or less and the applicant’s unofficial transcripts. All completed applications must be submitted via email by August 22, 2018 by 11:59pm to sustainability@brocku.ca. Successful recipients will be notified via email by September 7, 2018.

  Categories: Awards, Innovative Partnership, Minor in Sustainability, SSAS Program, Sustainability at Brock

• Milestones achieved by Facilities Management at Brock!

  Friday, June 15, 2018 | By Amanda Smits

  Blog Contributor: Shanen D’Souza

  

  Photo: Engine room at the Central Utilities Building, Brock University

  Facilities Management (FM) is the department responsible for all activities related to the maintenance, operations and development of Brock’s facilities and grounds. The department is heavily focused on sustainable development and the functioning of the campus. FM is always looking to reduce its impact on the environment and community around us. The recent grant of $75,000 awarded to Brock by the Ontario government to install 10 new electric vehicle charging stations is a testament to FM’s continued work towards Brock becoming a more sustainable campus.

  In the past year, the efforts of Facilities Management have reduced the energy consumption of the university as well as its greenhouse gas emissions. These efforts have also created thousands of dollars of yearly savings for the university. Installing new Variable Frequency Drives to two return fans in the Schmon Tower has led to over $86,000 in savings and 456,000 kWh in energy saved! These frequency drives coupled with a new high efficiency motor reduce the energy consumption of the Tower, the most used building on campus. Even a simple change in the LED lighting in both the 1^st and 5^th floors of the Tower have resulted in annual savings of over $3,000 and 17,000 kWh in energy.

  Another notable initiative by FM was the recommissioning of the Chiller in the Plaza building. A chiller is a machine that is used to cool the various buildings on campus. By using the Central Cooling Loop on campus instead, FM was able to shut down the Plaza chiller, as the Central Loop provided the necessary cooling on its own using innovative engineering methods. This has resulted in over $82,000 in annual savings and 435,000 kWh saved of energy. Subsequently, recommissioning the electric boilers in Decew Residence is now saving the university $140,000 annually and reducing energy consumption by 75,000 kWh!

  These proactive projects, along with several others in the last year, have cumulatively saved 1,750,000 kWh of energy and $332,000 on an annual basis! As the Facilities Management department leads Brock’s structural initiatives towards sustainability, the campus as a whole, can reduce its environmental impact and continue to be a good social citizen in the community.

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

• SSAS Students Take Stock of Sustainability Initiatives at Brock

  Wednesday, June 13, 2018 | By Amanda Smits

  Blog Contributor: Lydia Collas

  

  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

  Earlier this year, three Master of Sustainability students got a taste for project management providing a consultancy-type service to Facilities Management at Brock University. Project Manager, Leaya Amey, and her two teammates Sylvia Hussein and Qurat Shahzad, were tasked with carrying out a needs assessment of sustainability initiatives at Brock. The team spent a semester compiling an inventory of current sustainability initiatives whilst identifying areas for improvement. Based on best practices at other universities, the students provided guidance on how best to design initiatives to fill these gaps. In this blog post, Qurat shares how the project transpired and what the group learnt from the experience. Instalment

  1. Qurat, this sounds like quite a large project – how did you go about achieving your goals?

  During the first phase of the project, we held several meetings with our main clients Amanda Smits (ESRC) and Scott Jhonstone (Facilities Management), which were moderated by our Project Co-ordinator Bradley May. This allowed us to understand the needs of the clients and clarified any doubts that we had as a team going forward in the project. The second phase was research intensive and focused on compiling the inventory and identifying any gaps where Brock could be doing more. The third phase included coming up with key recommendations for Brock University; our action plan included targets which can be used to track Brock’s progress with their sustainability endeavors in the coming years. The final phase was to complete a project report and present our findings to our clients.

  2. This must be one of your first experiences of this sort of work – what did you learn about project management?

  This experience allowed us to understand the dynamics within a team project and what project management looks like in the real world. Often, it’s more about getting everyone on the same page and communicating the ideas clearly to avoid misunderstandings. We applied what we’d learnt in class out in the real world which saw us improve several key skills such as professional presentations, handling clients, communication skills, team work and time management. This made the course a really beneficial part of the Sustainability Science & Society (SSAS) Program. While all the other courses are mostly theoretical and research based, this course provided us with an opportunity to experience practical work and also showcase a possible career path in the future.

  3. What impact do you think your work will have?

  Our project is being used as the foundational work to be built on by two co-op positions, Special Project Assistant-Sustainability and Communications Assistant, in the ESRC this summer. These co-op students will work with the ESRC to continue this project in an effort to promote and enhance sustainability on campus.

  4. Is there a moment that stands out as a highlight of this experience?

  Scott was kind enough to take us on a tour of the Central Utilities Building which showed the inner workings of the Facilities Management Department and how they are working to incorporate sustainability into their daily operations. The highlight of the tour was getting to see the generators that produce enough electricity to make Brock energy independent and able to work off the grid.

  Many congratulations to the two groups of SSAS students that completed the Projects Course – you can read about the experience of the other group who worked with the Town of Lincoln here. 

  Categories: Blog, Experiential Education, Innovative Partnership, SSAS Student Contributor, Sustainability at Brock

• 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

• In our backyard: ESRC playing a part in Brock’s Community Garden

  Friday, May 25, 2018 | By Amanda Smits

  Blog Contributor: Shanen D’Souza

  

  Brock’s Community Garden, located opposite Theal House, has received tremendous support and involvement by the Niagara community in recent years. Every year people are encouraged to adopt a plot and grow different plants, whether it is colourful flowers or vegetables for supper. The 12 initial plots were so high in demand that the grounds crew had to make 8 additional plots, and now all 20 plots are assigned.

  The Environmental Sustainability Research Centre (ESRC) has adopted one plot and will be maintaining it over the summer months. I, along with the other summer interns as well as the staff at the centre, will be growing various plants this summer. Being an international student who grew up in a desert, I never had the opportunity to plant and watch flowers grow and bloom, so this is a very exciting opportunity for me.

  We will be planting cardinal flowers, a native red flower of the Niagara region. The Centre is working to promote sustainability on campus and aims to be an environmentally-friendly community member. Planting a native species promotes the unique flora of Niagara, and the red colour signifies the signature Brock red colour. We will also be planting some red vegetables like tomatoes and red peppers, and hopefully even some cucumbers.

  I am excited to watch these plants grow and bear fruit over the next couple of months. I have heard that deer and bunnies do feast upon fruits of the Brock Garden, but hopefully we will get to enjoy some too!

  

  Categories: Blog, Innovative Partnership, Student Contributor

• First week at the ESRC: An introduction to what we’re working on this summer

  Thursday, May 17, 2018 | By Amanda Smits

  Blog Contributor: Shelby McFadden

  

  Summer student assistants (from left to right): Kaitlin, Shanen and Shelby working in Theal House.

  From the moment my parents and I pulled up to the quaint wonder that is Theal House during a tour of campus, I knew that I would get along perfectly at Brock. I immediately decided to accept my offer for the Masters of Sustainability program for fall 2018. I made the important decision in Swiss Chalet over lunch, as my family and I went over all the benefits of attending Brock.

  Little did I know then, but I would later be offered the Special Projects Assistant position within the Environmental Sustainability Research Centre (ESRC) for the summer. And so on the evening of May 6^th, I moved to St. Catharines, and by the next morning, I was sitting in Theal House and starting training. Some of you may have a vague recollection of hearing about how the ESRC renovated and moved into Theal House back in February and how the Centre is partnering with Facilities Management on sustainability initiatives through a formal charter.  These milestones mark an exciting time for sustainability at Brock, and this summer is no exception, as we are working hard in the Centre on sustainability planning.

  To help carry out this new work on sustainability at Brock, three students, including myself, have been hired for the summer to work on both sustainability planning and communications. This is a really exciting opportunity for me, as I get to familiarize myself with Brock and the ESRC before I start my Masters in the fall. I will be able to gain valuable and relevant experience in the field of sustainability, and help contribute to something meaningful and positive in the Brock community.

  To be able to have a job you enjoy often feels rare to find, and so I am beyond thrilled to be joining the passionate and skilled staff dedicated to sustainability in the ESRC. I think the most amazing part is that staff, faculty, and students are all coming together to share their insights and skills, to engage with issues surrounding sustainability, and help to share Brock’s future directions.

  In the week and a half I’ve been at the Centre, I feel like I’ve gotten a good grasp on what’s currently happening at Brock in regard to sustainability, and I am optimistic for what is to come in the future. I am convinced there is a lot of good work being done at Brock, but that there is also a lot of room for growth and improvement. I want people to be aware that even though the Centre is tucked away in its own private space on campus, we are very much an active part of campus, and that there’s a lot of good and promising work being done here. I encourage faculty, staff, students, and visitors to pay attention to sustainability initiatives and efforts throughout the year, and to come visit us at Theal House and see what the ESRC is doing. We will be around all summer working hard on these exciting initiatives. Stay tuned to find out additional information and initiatives in our weekly summer blog series.

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