“Our annual consumption of disposable containers is too big. To date, the Eco-to-Go Program has reduced our consumption by 20%, but that’s really not enough. We need to get to 100%.” Victoria Wakefield, Purchasing Manager; Student Housing and Hospitality Services explains.
“It’s important to keep having these conversations about expanding sustainability at UBC. It’s a conversation we need to have with everyone. The Sustainability Challenge helped us expand the conversation and move us forward towards our zero waste goals.”
Identifying tangible solutions to overcome sustainability issues often requires novel - and perhaps unconventional - lines of thinking.
This was the approach embraced by the University of British Columbia (UBC) as it recently engaged students to develop new ideas that would help the university address campus sustainability challenges.
Launched in October 2015, with support from the UBC Centennial fund, the yearlong competition brought together interdisciplinary teams of students and invited them to develop their own solutions to overcome four campus sustainability challenges.
Commissioned by campus stakeholders, the four project areas included increasing student engagement in Bike to Work Week, enhancing student engagement to Meet Zero Waste targets, promoting Eco-To-Go at UBC Food Services locations on campus, and motivating 10,000 people on campus to commit to 10,000 steps for 100 days.
In all, eleven teams submitted their final projects last month. Three teams were awarded top prizes, and were recognized by the judges for the quality and potential to be implemented.
Taking the Bronze Prize ($1000), Knights of the Dinner Table sought to revitalize the Eco-to-Go Program by integrating the program into the culture of the first-year residence life.
Part of their proposal included an inter-house competition between Totem and Vanier where the number of Eco-to-Go containers used would be tallied against the number of disposable containers used.
At the end of the week, the scores of each house would be calculated, with the winning team being presented with a recognition banner.
Knights of the Dinner Table: Serena Chen, Arts; Candy Lo, Natural Resources Conservation; Alina Wong, Arts; Jessica Zhang, Land and Food Systems; Jennifer Zhang, Sauder
Winning the Silver Prize ($1500), U-Bring Container suggested an expansion of the Eco-To-Go program through the use of a strategic four-year plan focusing on five key areas: marketing, logistics, student membership, and expansion, each being broken down into a suite of short, medium and long term goals, with an ultimate goal of successfully implementing the program across all food service outlets.
U-Bring Container: Tushar Mehra, Arts; Sean Korpach, Computer Engineering; Isabel de Gainza, International Relations; Jake Wellian, Geography
Winning the Gold Prize ($2500) and taking the top spot, Sons of Sustainability wowed the judges with Ignite the Rider Inside, a project aimed at increasing engagement in Bike to Work Week by targeting faculty members as agents of change.
Identifying their influential position, this project seeks to empower faculty to become the primary marketing avenue of Bike to Work Week, imparting the value of participation onto their students and providing compelling motivation to increase engagement in Vancouver’s annual bike commuting campaign.
Sons of Sustainability: Kunjia Shi, Coordinated Arts Program; Matthew Madsen, Oceanography and Biology; Tom Chang, Biology with a minor in Nutrition
In response to winning the top prize, Matthew Madsen, Sons of Sustainability team member shares, "It was inspiring to be able to work with so many people who care about sustainability issues. Winning the challenge was a bonus."
Immediately following the event, the audience cast their ballot for The People’s Choice Award, selecting No Wst Pls as the fan favourite for their fresh take on a campus-wide mobile app that draws on gamification and socio-technical feedback to enhance zero-waste campus culture.
No Wst Pls: Sylvester Fu, Earth and Ocean Sciences; Yoki Li, Anthropology; Steuart Tannason Ng, Earth and Ocean Science
All eleven proposals are now in the hands of the project commissioners, and will be a resource for decisions going forward.
Kshamta Hunter, Manager of Student Engagement with the UBC Sustainability Initiative explains, “Everyone was so impressed with all of the final projects we received. Each team shone new light and enthusiasm into how we understand and think about addressing sustainability challenges on campus”.