What do sustainability ambassadors actually do?
Sustainability Ambassadors are organized into different cohorts, each focusing on a specific theme. These themes are designed to address various aspects of sustainability and climate action. Within these cohorts, ambassadors will collaborate with a diverse range of community partners, both within UBC and in the broader community outside the university. On this page, you will explore the projects they have completed in the past as well as those they are currently working on. Through these initiatives, you will discover how the ambassadors have successfully engaged more people in climate and sustainability actions, fostering a culture of environmental responsibility across the UBC campus.
2024/25 Projects
Vancouver’s Climate for Kids
Climate for Kids is an educational project that explains climate change to young audiences in Vancouver. It highlights how human activities like building heating and transportation contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. The project encourages kids to take action by walking, biking, or using public transit, and introduces future career paths in environmental fields. It also educates about the difference between weather and climate, and provides resources for families to support climate action at home.
Mobilizing UBC for Climate Action
As UBC Sustainability Ambassadors from the Campus + Community Planning (C+CP) Climate Action cohort, we're raising awareness about CAP2030—UBC’s bold path to net-zero emissions. Through outreach and engagement, we’re helping our campus community understand climate targets, take action, and shape a more sustainable future together.
Sustainable Heating Solutions for BC
Led by the Sustainability Ambassadors from the Climate Outreach cohort, this project raises public awareness about sustainable home heating solutions in Vancouver. Highlighting heat pumps' benefits, it supports the City of Vancouver’s climate initiatives by educating homeowners on energy-efficient, low-emission technologies critical for building a greener, climate-resilient future.
Climate Change and Affordability
Climate Change and Affordability explores how climate change is driving up the cost of living in Canada, adding an average of $720 annually per household. It highlights rising food prices, insurance costs, and promotes climate-friendly solutions like mass timber construction, heat pumps, and sustainable urban planning to build community resilience.
Media Project Series
UBC Sustainability Ambassadors produced a series of educational videos spotlighting critical sustainability challenges and solutions—from climate action to community well-being. These student-led projects engage students, faculty, and community members alike, showcasing real initiatives on campus and beyond while inviting everyone to help shape a more sustainable future.
2023/24 Projects
Transformative Solidarities Festival
The Transformative Solidarities Festival is a weeklong festival that took place from March 4-8 at UBC to celebrate diverse identities and personal stories within the climate community. As part of SDG Week Canada, this festival is aimed at cultivating enduring multidisciplinary, intergenerational, intersectional solidarities around climate justice and decolonial pedagogies. During the festival, the ambassadors delivered a series of programming including panels, workshops, film screenings, networking and cultural performances to over 200 students, faculty and community members.
Biodiversity Map
With the aim to address the lack of information and attention regarding local urban biodiversity and its importance for the ecosystem, the ambassadors created the Biodiversity Map to showcase the biodiversity and their daily life on the UBC campus.
Wellbeing Breaks
With the intention to connect students to nature through movements, the ambassadors developed a series of 5-10 minute Wellbeing Breaks with a focus on mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing. The Wellbeing Breaks are currently implemented by the UBC Move U Crew.
Intercultural Toolkit (Ongoing)
The ambassadors developed the Intercultural Toolkit with the goal of making culturally relevant well-being and climate-preparedness resources more accessible, especially for migrant, racialized, and lower-income communities who are most affected by climate change.
Food Systems Video
The ambassadors created three educational videos to inform students and UBC faculty about the prevalence of food insecurity on campus and highlight various community and student-led initiatives that promote sustainability and provide food resources. The videos also showcased diverse opportunities for campus involvement in efforts to eliminate food insecurity and address other sustainability issues within the food system.
2022/23 Projects
CLIMATE & COLLECTIVE LIBERATION PROJECT
The Climate & Collective Liberation Project aims to create an informal community coalition and digital resource hub that spotlights local leaders and organizations to bridge the many connections between climate and social justice movements. Ambassadors took a multimedia approach that draws upon the lived experiences of community members to redesign and expand the project’s website with accessibility in mind and include content on topics like economic justice and food justice.
YCAP Workshops
The ambassadors collaborated with the UBC Climate Hub on their Youth Climate Ambassadors Project (YCAP). Together, they hosted 16 workshops and successfully engaged more than 350 students from different schools across Greater Vancouver.
Dunbar Youth Engagement Strategic Plan
The ambassadors partnered with the Dunbar Residents' Association to develop a 2-5 year Youth Engagement Strategic Plan to improve sustainability, intergenerational relationships, social isolation, and food insecurity in the Dunbar Community.
Climate Justice Survey Infographic
During Climate Emergency Week, the ambassadors surveyed approximately 400 UBC undergraduate students from different faculties and created an infographic to visualize their current exposure to climate education and knowledge of climate justice.
More Previous Projects
Climate Change & Biodiversity Video Series
The ambassadors produced four videos on climate change and its impact on biodiversity to raise awareness and educate the UBC community about these critical issues. Each video features students, professors, and community members who share their insights on the importance of biodiversity and discuss actionable steps we can take to address the current challenges.
Wasted – A Video Series
In our globalized world, many of us are unaware of where our everyday essentials come from and where they go when disposed of. Inspired by this complexity, the ambassadors created a series of four student-made films. With the goal to raise awareness among UBC students about resource origins and inspire them to prevent waste, these videos explore the sources of our energy, the daily consumption and waste of energy, water, and food, the positive environmental impacts of small lifestyle changes, and ways to reduce carbon footprints.
