This year, UBC celebrates the 15th anniversary of the Sustainability Hub and its home, the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability.

What began with a vision of “Net Positive” gave UBC a way to pursue a leadership role in sustainability. For fifteen years, we’ve carried that vision forward through new language and ideas, including Sustainability Learning Pathways, Agents of Change, and Campus as a Living Lab.

We’ve also reached the halfway mark of UBC’s 20 Year Sustainability Strategy—an ambitious plan to advance academic and operational sustainability at UBC.

This moment offers an opportunity to reflect on outstanding programs such as the Sustainability Ambassadors, Fellows, Scholars, and the Campus as a Living Lab Fund Competition. It is a time to celebrate the successes and impacts of our work with faculty, students, staff, and partners, and to explore the future direction of the Sustainability Hub—building on our progress toward the vision of the 20 Year Sustainability Strategy while deepening support for the university’s Academic Mission and UBC’s Strategic Directions 2025–2030.

This spring, the Sustainability Hub invites you to join us in celebrating these achievements and helping to shape an even stronger future supporting academic sustainability at UBC.

 

 

April 13-17: Events and Activities

Sustainability Education Fellows Showcase!

Mon Apr 13 | 11am – 4.30pm | BC Hydro Theatre
The Sustainability Education Fellows represent a network of over 90 faculty members from the UBC Vancouver campus that have actively participated and led sustainability curriculum projects over the last 15 years.

This showcase and celebration event will feature presentations from the current cohort of Sustainability Education Fellows, highlighting the very latest in curriculum and pedagogy innovations. Formal presentations will be followed by breakout activities and a fun social mixer bringing together current and former Fellows from diverse disciplines and backgrounds, united by a shared passion for teaching a new generation of learners about today’s sustainability issues and solutions for the future. To end, a book launch by former Fellows based on ideas and practices developed during their participation in the program.

Activities:

  • 11am – 1pm: Current Fellows Projects Presentations
  • 1pm – 3pm: Current and alumni Fellows social mixer
  • 3pm – 4.30pm: Book launch! Becoming Ecological: Navigating Language and Meaning for Our Planet's Future, by former Fellows Dr. Derek Gladwin & Dr. Kedrick James.

Learn more about the Sustainability Education Fellows program.

 

UBC Reads Sustainability with Kate Marvel

Wed Apr 15 | 6pm – 8.30pm | CIRS 1250, Modern Green Auditorium
A public lecture using nine emotions to explore the science and stories behind climate change. 

Kate Marvel’s book Human Nature is a deeply felt inquiry into our rapidly changing Earth. In each chapter, Marvel uses a different emotion to explore the science and stories behind climate change. As expected, there is anger, fear, and grief—but also wonder, hope, and love.

Live on stage for her first public talk in Canada, Marvel offers to take us on a soaring journey – one filled with mythology, physics, witchcraft, bad movies, volcanoes, Roman emperors, sequoia groves, and the many small miracles of nature we usually take for granted.

Presented by the UBC Sustainability Hub & Climate Solutions Research Collective.

get tickets

 

 

Campus as a Living Lab: Communities of Practice Launch

Thu April 16 | 2pm – 4pm | BC Hydro Theatre
UBC’s Campus as a Living Lab provides a collaborative framework for faculty, staff, students and partners to address urgent global sustainability challenges.

Over the past 15 years, Living lab projects at UBC have taken various forms: large capital projects that demonstrate first-of-a-kind ideas, such as the Bioenergy Research and Demonstration Facility, research-industry partnerships piloting innovative technologies, and the integration of research and learning with operational priorities through programs like SEEDS.

Now Campus as a Living Lab is evolving beyond funding projects – to add deeper support for Communities of Practice. This launch event and future activities will convene living lab stakeholders to share experiences, identify synergies, and establish a formal network to foster sustained collaboration.

Learn more about the Campus as a Living Lab program.

 

Sustainability Changemakers: Alumni Celebration

Thu April 16 | 5pm – 8pm | BC Hydro Theatre
Celebrating student leadership and real-world impact.

Alumni from the Sustainability Ambassadors and Sustainability Scholars programs share more than a common path—they share a commitment to turning learning into action. For fifteen years, these programs have connected experiential learning with real-world sustainability challenges, building applied skills, practical knowledge, and community impact alongside our partners.

This celebration brings together everyone who has stepped up as a Sustainability Changemaker, working on projects with local non-profits, schools, municipalities, utilities, and businesses to advance sustainability at the University of British Columbia and beyond.

What to expect:

  • Signature mocktail: The Changemaker
  • Changemaker superhero name badges
  • Fireside chat with fellow changemakers
  • Shared food platters
  • Door prizes

Reconnect with old friends, make new connections, and take time to celebrate your achievements — while helping us look ahead to the next chapter of academic sustainability at UBC.

Learn more about the Sustainability Ambassadors and Sustainability Scholars programs.