Sustainability Scholars Program

Many of Metro Vancouver’s Regional Parks have experienced jumps in visitor counts, indicating an opportunity to purposefully revamp existing amenities that help people enjoy and connect with the natural environment, while also being sensitive to important ecosystems in each park. This report provides a framework to guide the design and planning decisions for several Metro Vancouver Regional Parks to ensure that these sites are fully accessible where possible to those with motor disabilities, so all people have an opportunity to enjoy nature equally.

Partner: Metro Vancouver
Keywords: ecological systems, social sustainability

This report explores the role of the construction renovation and demolition (CRD) sector as a key player in reducing consumption of natural resources and waste production. This report recommends decoupling economic growth from the consumption of finite natural resources by transitioning from a linear to a circular economy.

Partner: Metro Vancouver
Keywords: green buildings, sustainable development & green economy, waste management & recycling

Metro Vancouver is currently performing condition assessments on gravity sewer mains using closed-circuit television (CCTV) inspections. Due to constraints including pipe access and flows, the condition of water mains, forcemains, and marine crossings cannot be easily assessed. This report outlines the condition assessment technologies suitable for Metro Vancouver’s Water Services and Liquid Waste Services linear assets.

Partner: Metro Vancouver
Keywords: sustainable development & green economy, water, waste management & recycling

Metro Vancouver’s Smart Drive Challenge (SDC), pilot program was intended to develop an understanding of how driver feedback could be used to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through both better driving habits and reduced reliance on automobiles. This study used three regression models: pooled ordinary least squares (OLS), fixed effects and first difference regression modelling techniques, on data collected via onboard data loggers during the SDC program. By using regression models, the effects directly attributable to the SDC can be quantified while accounting for confounding factors such as weather, fuel price and hours spent driving.

Partner: Metro Vancouver
Keywords: transportation

This report summarizes and compares tools and methodologies used by air quality and climate change agencies in other jurisdictions when conducting background analysis, consulting on, and drafting their air quality and climate changes plans, programs, and policies. The resulting report will inform the approach taken by the Air Quality and Climate Change division at Metro Vancouver when developing new plans and policies.

Partner: Metro Vancouver
Keywords: climate and renewables, sustainable development & green economy

The UBC Farm Socio-ecological Monitoring Application is an ongoing project that aims to develop a dynamic monitoring and reporting system for UBC Farm that can also be adapted to other scales of farming operations. Its ultimate goal is to make farming more sustainable by closely tracking and reporting on every aspect of a Farm’s operation. This document aims to provide a detailed report on the system architecture and design choices of the application’s current iteration (April – September 2017).

Partner: UBC Centre for Sustainable Food Systems at the UBC Farm
Keywords: sustainable development & green economy

Conflict Theatre has provided a thoughtful, effective, and popular way to engage people in difficult conversations, while also allowing them the space to practice and rehearse various strategies and responses to a conflict situation. As a project with both immediate and long-term goals, evaluation has been and will continue to look different for different aspects of the process. This report focuses on the individual level of evaluation to understand the personal impact of Rehearsing Conflict, and Conflict Theatre more generally. Program operations and community engagement are key areas for evaluation that are discussed elsewhere, including prior reports.

Partner: UBC Human Resources
Keywords: social sustainability, sustainability in education

This report looks at technical barriers and opportunities for various archetypes of multi-unit residential buildings (MURBs) and looks at the economic and environmental performance of specific heat pump technologies suitable for MURB retrofits. To generalize what upgrades are suitable for certain buildings, various archetypes were defined with the intent that specific upgrades could be applied on a large number of similar buildings. 

Partner: City of Vancouver
Keywords: green buildings, sustainable development & green economy

The objective of this project is to facilitate energy retrofits of multi-unit residential buildings (MURBs) by documenting case studies of heat pump retrofit examples in the Lower Mainland. The case studies are meant to instruct building owners and encourage technology uptake as well as inform updates to the City of Vancouver’s Energy Retrofit Strategy for Existing Buildings.

Partner: City of Vancouver
Keywords: green buildings, sustainable development & green economy