The Sustainability Hub is a hub of action. We build collaborative communities, attract diverse individuals with heterogeneous knowledge, and facilitate creativity and collaboration in physical and digital spaces.
Welcome to the Sustainability Hub
The UBC Sustainability Initiative was created in 2009. Today we are no longer an initiative, we are an integral member of the university community as reflected by our name – Sustainability Hub.
British Columbia is facing significant climate and sustainability challenges. Deadly heat domes, devastating forest fires, and destructive floods. Dangerous air pollution, damaged communities, and endangered ecosystems. Our communities are seriously impacted and, for many, local events make global climate change and sustainability issues frighteningly real for the first time.
As a public university, UBC is working hard to respond to these urgent and interlinked challenges. The institution’s 2019 Climate Emergency Declaration, adopted unanimously in principle by the Board of Governors and Senates, is one example that shows this resolve.
Our mission
The Sustainability Hub is focused on catalyzing change – across UBC and beyond.
Our five-year strategic plan outlines how we are activating our mission, "Inspiring people to act upon the planet’s most urgent challenges through UBC’s academic and operational sustainability leadership".
Our approach
We strive to achieve our mission through UBC’s four core areas of work.
People and Places
We are a university and regional hub for sustainability, catalyzing connections and serving communities on and off campus. In our home – the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability – we create an inspiring and welcoming space for climate action and sustainability.
Transformative Learning
We support making transformative climate and sustainability learning opportunities available for all UBC students and sharing educational resources with the broader community. We enable the integration of sustainability into courses and credentials to ensure that all students at UBC have access to sustainability education.
Research Excellence
As the academic support partner for campus operational sustainability, we strive to advance UBC’s academic mission, serve as a bridge between the academy and campus operations, and amplify and disseminate the sustainability achievements of faculty, students and staff to increase their impact.
In particular, one of our key roles is to connect faculty to operational staff through the Campus as a Living Lab initiative in order to test sustainability ideas that leverage our academic and operational capabilities to respond to global sustainability problems.
Local and Global Engagement
We cultivate deep and meaningful relationships with local and global communities to foster courageous dialogue that motivates urgent and intentional action to address sustainability, climate action and social justice.
As a hub for action, facilitating collaboration is essential. Our team – including Senior Director, Linda Nowlan, and Acting Academic Director Melissa McHale, would love to hear your feedback and talk about new opportunities to work together. Please get in touch.
Our work
Below are links to our current programs, projects, and initiatives.
OUR VISION
A just and sustainable world.
Land Acknowledgement
The Sustainability Hub office is located at the UBC Point Grey campus situated within the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam). As part of the larger UBC community, we are guests and settlers on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and Syilx (Okanagan) Nations.
In our pursuit of sustainability, climate action and climate justice, we understand that protecting human rights is indelibly woven into the fabric of environmental protection and sustainability. As guests and settlers on Indigenous lands, we share an important responsibility for learning with and about our host Nations and strengthening these relationships. We will continue building on existing partnerships with our host Nations through mutual respect and reciprocity.
Campus as a Living Lab
A collaborative framework for faculty, staff, students and partners to address urgent global sustainability challenges.
Catalyst Program
A free certification program for sustainability engagement and leadership. Get recognition for volunteering and engagement efforts.
Climate and Education Wellbeing Grants
Up to $6,000 to UBC faculty members to incorporate climate change and wellbeing content and approaches into existing undergraduate and graduate courses.
Degrees and Certificate Programs Listing
UBC offers more than 50 sustainability-related undergraduate, graduate and professional programs. Check out our curated listing and choose your pathway.
Find a Course Tool
Use our course finder tool to search and filter for sustainability learning opportunities at UBC.
Sustainability Ambassadors Program
A leadership experience for students interested in personal, collaborative, and community engaged learning.
Sustainability Dashboards
Open access to UBC’s latest sustainability performance across our academic, operational, and community-focused areas of work. Explore visualizations, and download the latest open data for further research and learning.
Sustainability Education Grants
Funding for Vancouver faculty members looking to advance and diversify sustainability education opportunities for students across campus in all disciplines.
Sustainability Fellowships
Fellowships are awarded to full-time UBC Vancouver faculty members who are leading the design of new sustainability courses and programs through a Sustainability Education Grant.
Sustainability Scholars Program
We match UBC graduate students with on- and off-campus sustainability partners to work on applied research projects that advance sustainability across the region.
UBC’s COP Delegation
Each year UBC receives observer badges for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties (UNFCCC COP). Find out how to apply.
UBC Reads Sustainability
Part book club, part lecture series, and part opportunity to learn beyond the classroom. UBC Reads Sustainability is a forum for students across disciplines to discuss sustainability issues.
UBC’s Annual Sustainability Report
UBC continues to advance climate action and sustainability through teaching and learning, research, operations, and community. This annual report aims to cover the breadth, depth, and innovation of this remarkable work.
UBC’s Climate Emergency Response
The Sustainability Hub is responsible for convening and coordinating people across UBC to make progress on the Climate Emergency TaskForce report’s recommendations.
Meet the team
Our equitable, inclusive, and diverse team is committed to transformative change, protecting the environment, climate justice and to enriching the UBC campus landscape with a stronger Indigenous presence.
The Sustainability Hub is guided by an Advisory Committee consisting of executive leadership, deans, faculty, and students from across academic, operational, and community-focused areas of the university.
Leadership
Linda Nowlan, Senior Director
Linda Nowlan leads the Sustainability Hub at UBC as Senior Director. She has over twenty-five years of experience in sustainability as a public interest environmental lawyer and NGO leader. Since joining UBC in 2020, Linda has co-led the development of the Sustainability Hub's strategic plan, instituted the Climate Justice webinar series, and started a new program to convene and coordinate work on implementing the UBC Climate Emergency Task Force report. Linda is an Adjunct Professor at the Allard School of Law, where she co-teaches an environmental law workshop. She is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Canadian Museum of Nature and the IUCN Commission on Environmental Law, and previously served on Vancouver's Greenest City Action Team and the Boards of the Fraser Basin Council and Smart Growth BC. Her advocacy contributed to many legal reforms, and her publications cover topics ranging from groundwater protection to marine spatial planning to extinction art.
At West Coast Environmental Law, Linda served as Executive Director, Staff Lawyer, and Director of the Marine Program where she led a team to strengthen ocean protection through Canadian and Indigenous law. She also worked at WWF-Canada, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and a Vancouver litigation law firm. Linda has degrees in English literature, law and international law.
Tara Ivanochko, Academic Director
As Academic Director, Tara works in partnership with the Senior Director to provide vision, guidance, and oversight to the Hub. Tara received her PhD from the University of Edinburgh where she reconstructed changes in the intensity of the Indian Monsoon over the last 100,000 years and investigated the interconnections between equatorial and polar climate change.
Tara joined UBC’s Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences (EOAS) as faculty in the Educational Leadership steam in 2009. In EOAS, Tara has since served as the Director of Environmental Science and as Associate Head Undergraduate Affairs. Tara has also engaged as a Sustainability Fellow with the USI to forward sustainability education at UBC, as a steering committee member for the UBC Centre for Sustainable Food Systems, and as a member of the UBC Interdisciplinary Education Task Force. She helped envision the UBC 20-year Sustainability Strategy and develop the Faculty of Science sustainability course offerings.
As an educator, Tara builds relationships between students and community organizations through collaborative research projects. These projects allow environmental science students to actively contribute to building sustainable communities.
Central Support Office
Jon Garner, Communications and Engagement Manager
Jon is a Communications and Engagement Manager with experience in education, non-profit, private sector and government. He holds a Masters in Resource and Environmental Management from Simon Fraser University.
Equally at home behind a pop-up booth or keyboard, Jon has designed and implemented strategic communications plans that integrate media relations, advertising, websites, videos, social media, experiential events, and more.
Jon oversees the production of key publications including the Annual Sustainability Report, engagement activities such as Imagine day booths, and cross-campus engagement campaigns like Let’s Choose to Reuse.
Natalie Hawryshkewich, Communications and Engagement Specialist
Natalie has a Bachelor of Design from Toronto Metropolitan University and a Master in Library and Information Studies from UBC.
Her experience in graphic design and communications spans publishing, academia, and the arts including work with the Association of Book Publishers of British Columbia, SFU Public Square, and the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre.
Tim Herron, CIRS Events and Engagement Manager
Tim has worked at UBC since 2012. He has had many careers from teaching kindergarten to carpentry to working backstage on large rock shows and raves.
Activist, lover of theatre and film.
Alejandra Urcelay, Data Manager
As the Data Manager for the Sustainability Hub, Alejandra supports reporting, analysis, and communication activities across the different groups within the unit. In addition, she collaborates with other partners including UBC's Campus & Community Planning, Wellbeing, and the UBC Okanagan Sustainability Office. She holds a Bachelor of Applied Science in Environmental Engineering from Universidad La Salle, Mexico and a Masters in Science in Resources, Environment and Sustainability from UBC.
Alejandra has experience working in environmental consulting services including environmental and social impact assessments, environmental monitoring, climate change impacts assessment, and spatial modelling projects.
Alejandra's current work focuses on analyzing institutional data to highlight trends in sustainability performance and in providing evidence-based insights and recommendations that inform future programs and activities.
Laura Campbell, Administrative Coordinator
Laura is the administrative coordinator at the Sustainability Hub, responsible for front desk, financial, human resources and administration processes.
Laura has a Bachelor of Arts with a double major in Geography and Environmental Governance. She has over 10 years of experience working in administration with not-for-profits, charities and academic institutions. She loves to chat about food, forests and connecting on what matters most in our lives.
Regional and International Engagement
Cait Murphy, Engagement Specialist, Regional & International Engagement
Cait is a settler of Irish and Dutch descent currently living in the territories of Tsawwassen Nation, Musqueam Nation, Stz'uminus Nation, Tsleil-Waututh Nation, Katzie Nation, Kwantlen Nation, and Stó꞉lō Nation. She has worked on environmental and social sustainability initiatives locally and abroad and has a keen interest in climate change and methods to motivate sustainable action. Previously, she led BC-based programs on climate change adaptation and resilience, engaged local government employees in sustainable behaviour-change in the San Francisco Bay Area and coordinated communications for an environmental charity. Cait holds a MA in Disasters, Climate Change Adaptation and Development from King's College London and a BSc in Global Resource Systems from UBC. She is a big fan of Halloween, graphic novels, and making new connections.
Teaching, Learning, and Student Engagement
Oliver Lane, Manager, Teaching and Learning
As the Teaching and Learning Manager, Oliver is responsible for developing, implementing and leading a range of programs and activities to support faculty members who teach sustainability and climate related courses and programs at UBC. These include the Sustainability Fellows Program, the Interdisciplinary Education Grants and the Climate Education Grants.
A UBC Graduate with a Masters degree in Sustainability, Oliver brings 20 years of diverse experience in environmental education, program management, poverty reduction work and non-profit organizational leadership. Before moving to Canada in 2008, Oliver obtained university degrees in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in Business Economics and Non-profit Organization Management.
Kshamta Hunter, Manager of Transformative Learning & Student Engagement
Kshamta Hunter brings over a decade of experience in sustainability learning and teaching, curriculum design and program management. She holds a PhD in sustainability curriculum and pedagogy, and teaches in the UBC’s Faculty of Education. Kshamta’s research explores the intersections of sustainability learning and leadership, using Transformative Learning and social innovation frameworks.
As the Manager of Transformative Learning & Student Engagement with the UBC Sustainability Hub, Kshamta develops and implements transformative, sustainability-focused learning and leadership opportunities for students, while developing creative and innovative approaches to new programming and curriculum through her research projects.
She is an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, the co-chair of publications and scholarly works for the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies and member of the editorial advisory board for the Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies.
Karen Taylor, Manager, Sustainability Scholars Program
Karen manages the Sustainability Scholars Program, a paid internship program for UBC graduate students to work on applied sustainability-related research projects for organizations throughout the lower mainland, Vancouver Island, and the B.C. Interior.
A UBC graduate with a BA in English and an MA in Children’s Literature, Karen has an extensive and varied background in program management, project management, marketing, advertising production, academic writing, research, and editing.
Carmen Wan, Program Specialist
Carmen is responsible for supporting program managers to administer programs that are focused on advancing sustainability and climate priorities across the academic landscape at UBC.
Carmen holds an MSc in Sustainability from UBC, as well as a BSc in Environmental Science from the University of Nottingham. Prior to pursuing her MSc, Carmen spent over 5 years of experience as a sustainability officer in both a Malaysian airline company and a Singaporean agribusiness firm.
UBC Climate Emergency
Pablo Akira Beimler, Senior Project Manager
Pablo is a Co-Senior Project Manager of UBC’s Climate Emergency supporting the implementation of a comprehensive and just response to the climate crisis across UBC campuses. He is a Masters of Community and Regional Planning graduate in the Indigenous Community Planning program at UBC and has a B.A. in Environmental Economics & Policy, B.S. in Conservation & Resources Studies, and minor in Forestry from the University of California, Berkeley.
Pablo was formerly the UBC Climate Hub's Academic Lead and has years of experience conducting wildfire research and facilitating community-led and focused wildfire management, outreach, and youth education programming throughout Hawaiʻi and in South Lake Tahoe, California. Pablo’s deep reverence for nature and passion for bringing together people from all walks of life drives his work as a planner. He approaches community work with empathy, integrity, and a commitment to decolonization and social justice and believes in the power of collective action, deep collaboration, and intersectional movement building.
Nazia Ahmed, Project Specialist
Nazia is a highly accomplished professional with a Master of Engineering Leadership from UBC and a Master of Environmental Science from her home country. With over a decade of experience working with prestigious institutions like the United Nations and the World Bank, Nazia's commitment to sustainability is evident in her leadership roles, including incorporating a Strategic Environmental Assessment into her home country’s legislative framework at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
In recent years, Nazia has focused on the intersection of sustainability, climate change and the health sector, leading impactful projects in the Western Himalayas. Her work involves preparing communities for adverse climate changes through early warning systems, resilient infrastructure upgrades, and capacity building. As the Evaluation Lead with UBC Digital Emergency Medicine, she passionately supported quality improvement evaluation strategies to mitigate the impact of disproportionate access to health care involving underserved communities.
Urban Innovation Research
Angelique Pilon, Director, Urban Innovation Research
Angelique leads the Urban Innovation Research portfolio of interdisciplinary research and knowledge dissemination programs focused on sustainable buildings and urban development. She develops collaborations and partnerships that take advantage of UBC’s role as a living lab for sustainability, utilizing planning, building and infrastructure projects as opportunities for innovation, learning and knowledge exchange.
Angelique holds a Master of Architecture from the University of British Columbia and a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Michigan, and has professional experience in firms in both Canada and the United States. She has been at UBC for 10 years, in a variety of roles working at the intersection of research and practice.
Angelique is on the Leadership Board for the BC Chapter of the Canada Green Building Council; she is a certified Project Management Professional, and a LEED Accredited Professional with a specialization in Building Design and Construction.
Megan Badri, Research Technician/Project lead, Urban Innovation Research
Megan is a research technician at the Sustainability Hub. Her role is coordinating on knowledge capture and dissemination projects and leading research and initiatives focused on high performance, low carbon, and sustainable buildings.
Prior to joining the Hub, Megan was working as a building sustainability analyst and scholar with both industry and research centres, responsible for engaging in activities to leverage, support, and promote services in the field of energy efficient buildings, green rating systems, and sustainable built environment.
Megan holds a Master Degree in Energy and Architectural Engineering from the University of Tehran, and currently she is pursuing her PhD in Environmental Design at the University of Calgary. Her research focus is eliminating building environmental impacts by integrating Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and energy performance analysis. She is a LEED Green Associate.
Anthony An, Campus as a Living Lab Research Manager, Urban Innovation Research
Anthony is the Campus as a Living Lab (CLL) Research Manager at the UBC Sustainability Hub, contributing to diverse initiatives, programs, and projects that leverage university infrastructure for research, learning and knowledge transfer.
Anthony holds a Ph.D. and MASc in Mechanical Engineering from UBC and he is a registered professional engineer. Prior to joining the hub, he managed a UBC industry partnership program, driving strategy, execution, and stakeholder relationships to foster technological innovations on sustainability. Anthony's background includes roles as a senior engineer and project manager at FPInnovations, where the team successfully delivered several key smart manufacturing R&D projects in forestry.
Anthony is a passionate sports enthusiast and a firm believer of lifelong learning, staying curious and embracing challenges in work and life.