With solid leadership, a clear vision and firm commitments, UBC has set the foundation to address climate change with the campus community.

VISION FOR CLIMATE ACTION

In 2008, UBC launched an intensive climate action planning process to engage campus partners and students. A climate symposium and several workshops resulted in UBC’s vision on climate action: 

Confronting the challenges of climate change, the University of British Columbia will advance solutions on campus that eliminate emissions, will accelerate efforts to respond to the impacts of climate change, and will partner locally and globally to demonstrate leadership and accountability to future generations.

The UBC Executive has endorsed the climate action vision and four commitments identified in the development process:

1. Becoming a net positive energy producer by 2050. We will go beyond carbon neutral through aggressive conservation, deployment of renewable technologies and by re-designing how we conduct our business. 
2. Partnering for change. We will drive technological and behavioral change through demonstration, innovative research and teaching and by using our global profile to establish partnerships that allow us to learn and share solutions with others.
3. Using the campus as a living laboratory. We will use our unique position – as an educational and research institution, a landowner, a tenant, a utility, a community, a forester, and a farmer – to provide integrated learning opportunities that result in the development and implementation of climate change solutions.
4. Accounting for the full costs of our decisions. We will incorporate consideration of social, environmental and economic impacts in our decision-making to increase the resiliency of our communities and lead change towards a sustainable, low carbon future.

UBC CLIMATE ACTION PLAN

In 2009, UBC prepared its Climate Action Plan by leading campus-wide consultations and working groups to develop targets and strategies for emissions reductions.  Based on this plan, President Stephen Toope committed UBC's Vancouver campus to aggressive reduction targets for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The university aims to:

• Reduce GHGs to 33 per cent below 2007 levels by 2015
• Reduce GHGs to 67 per cent below 2007 levels by 2020
• Reduce GHGs to 100 per cent below 2007 levels by 2050

The Climate Action Plan is the result of a multi-year planning process. Over 200 UBC students, staff, faculty and community members contributed expertise and recommendations to the UBC Climate Action Plan.  The Plan identifies Greenhouse Gas emissions reductions strategies in the areas of:

• Campus Development and Infrastructure
• Energy Supply and Management
• Fleets and Fuel Use
• Business Travel and Procurement
• Transportation
• Food

Download a PDF executive summary or the full Climate Action Plan.

PROGRESS REPORTS & INVENTORIES

Progress and highlights from the first year of implementing the Climate Action Plan are shared in the 2010 Report.

As part of BC’s carbon-neutral public sector, UBC offset all of its greenhouse gas emissions in 2010 and published a Carbon Neutral Action Report.

Inventories for the Vancouver campus emissions have been completed for 2006 , 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010.

TAKING ACTION

UBC has defined the strategies that will achieve its short-term target of reducing emissions by 33 percent by 2015:

UBC Bioenergy Research and Demonstration Project (BRDP)

The UBC Bioenergy Research and Demonstration Project (BRDP), a partnership with Vancouver-based Nexterra and General Electric, broke ground in February 2011. When completed in 2012, the $27 million project will be the first biomass gasification, heat-and-power co-generation system of its kind in the world. 

Fuelled by wood biomass diverted from the landfill, the project will generate enough clean electricity to power 1,500 homes and will eliminate 9 percent of annual GHG emissions by reducing campus natural gas consumption. Showcasing the campus as a living lab, the project will also provide research and learning opportunities for faculty and students.

Converting the district heating system to a hot water system

Further GHG reductions will be achieved by converting the current district heating system from steam to hot water, estimated to reduce energy demand by 24 percent and yield a 22 percent reduction in GHG emissions. Set to be one of the largest hot water conversions in North America, the project entails an $87 million capital investment on the Vancouver Campus and will replace 14 km of piping.

 The first phase of the project is slated to begin in Summer 2011 and will connect 15 buildings surrounding UBC’s Bioenergy Research and Demonstration Project (BRDP). The reduced operating temperatures of the hot water system will allow for significant waste heat recovery from the BRDP starting in 2012, with backup and peaking provided by an existing steam to hot water heat exchanger located in the University Services Building.

Continuous Optimization

The Continuous Optimization program, a partnership with BC Hydro and Pulse Energy, was launched in 2010 and will continue to be deployed through 2015. This program will optimize the performance of 72 core academic buildings by identifying and implementing low-cost operational and maintenance changes, and then maintaining this new optimized state through real-time monitoring and response.  Combined with improved behaviour change initiatives, the program will result in campus energy and GHG emissions reductions of 10 percent below 2007 levels by 2015 in core buildings.

 In 2010, two pilot buildings underwent upgrades and started showing energy reductions of 15 to 30 percent.  The next 17 buildings will be optimized in 2011. 

HISTORY

UBC began focusing on climate action in 1997, and was a pioneer in identifying climate change as a priority issue that required innovative solutions. The University is a leader in establishing groundbreaking initiatives with long-term impacts.  The ECOTrek program, launched in 2001, was the largest energy and water retrofit on a Canadian campus at the time. As a result of ECOTrek, UBC reduced greenhouse gas emissions in its 277 core buildings by 6% in 2007, compared to 1990 levels, despite a floor space increase of 35%.  This already met international targets established by the Kyoto Protocol, which required a six per cent reduction from 1990 levels by 2012.

In 2007 the University set out to examine how it could expand its reduction activities and set realistic targets.  UBC collaborated in the development of and was a founding signatory to the University and College Presidents' Climate Change Statement of Action for Canada in 2008.  This formal commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions propelled the development of the first UBC Climate Action Plan.

The President's Statement also committed UBC to undertake a GHG inventory which was fist completed for the 2006 year.

The climate action planning process is summarized in this  case study.

WANT TO KNOW MORE?

Contact Lillian Zaremba, Climate and Energy Engineer for more information on the Climate Action Plan.