VISION 2020: CREATING A SUSTAINABLE MCGILL A SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS McGill University Spring 2012 Purpose: Describe McGill’s sustainability initiatives and position them relative to peers and best practices. Primary Audience: McGill community members interested in learning more about McGill’s sustainability initiatives and performance, particularly as contrasted with other North American universities. TABLE OF CONTENTS 4.2.5 Grounds ______________________________________________ 32 4.2.6 Food _________________________________________________ 33 Table of Contents _____________________________________ 2 4.2.7 Water ________________________________________________ 35 4.2.8 Waste Management ____________________________________ 36 Executive Summary ____________________________________ 3 4.2.9 Procurement __________________________________________ 37 1. Background _____________________________________ 5 4.3. Culture ___________________________________________ 40 4.3.1 Introduction ___________________________________________ 40 1.1. Purpose __________________________________________ 5 4.3.2 Governance ___________________________________________ 40 1.2. Report Methodology _______________________________ 5 4.3.3 Investments & Shareholder Engagement ____________________ 44 4.3.4 Health & Wellbeing _____________________________________ 44 2. Sustainability ___________________________________ 6 4.3.5 Diversity, Equity & Accessibility ____________________________ 46 2.1. Concept and Definitions _____________________________ 6 4.3.6 Partnerships ___________________________________________ 48 2.2. Sustainability in Higher Education _____________________ 6 5. Benchmarking McGill’s Sustainability Performance ____ 50 3. McGill University Context _________________________ 10 5.1. Benchmarking Background __________________________ 50 3.1. About McGill University ____________________________ 10 5.2. Data Limitations ___________________________________ 50 3.2. The History of Sustainability at McGill—Looking Back to 5.3. Comparator Universities ____________________________ 51 Move Forward _________________________________________ 11 5.4. Benchmarking Results ______________________________ 51 A Shift Begins: Late 1990s – 2007 ______________________________ 13 Where McGill is a leader of the pack ____________________________ 51 The Shift and Beyond: 2008 - 2012 _____________________________ 14 Where McGill is running with the crowd _________________________ 52 Lessons Looking Forward _____________________________________ 16 Where McGill may be falling behind ____________________________ 53 4. McGill’s Sustainability Initiatives in Context __________ 18 6. Appendices _____________________________________ 55 4.1. Academics _______________________________________ 18 Appendix A: Comparator Institutions ____________________________ 55 4.1.1 Introduction ___________________________________________ 18 Appendix B: Situational Analysis Contributors & Reviewers __________ 58 4.1.2 Research and Teaching in the Discussion of Sustainability in Higher Appendix C: Listing of faculties, schools, centres, institutes at McGill Education _________________________________________________ 18 University _________________________________________________ 58 4.1.3 Research _____________________________________________ 19 Appendix D: Sustainability as a Focus vs. Value in Research __________ 60 4.1.4 Teaching _____________________________________________ 21 4.2. Operations _______________________________________ 27 4.2.1 Introduction ___________________________________________ 27 4.2.2 Built Environment ______________________________________ 27 4.2.3 Energy _______________________________________________ 28 4.2.4 Transportation _________________________________________ 31 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Historically, much of the focus around sustainability at McGill, as elsewhere, has been on operations—reducing the environmental footprint of the Vision 2020: Creating a Sustainable McGill is a yearlong consultation and university through initiatives such as energy efficiency, paper use reduction, planning process that builds on recent successes to set a sustainability strategy and composting. There have also been notable efforts on the academic side to for—and from—the McGill community. The process has three phases, each of incorporate sustainability into both research and teaching, including the which is driven by a key question and yields a specific document as its primary founding of the McGill School of Environment and the establishment of a joint deliverable: BA & Sc major in Sustainability, Science and Society through the Department of Geography. • Phase 1: Situational Analysis o What is the McGill community currently doing around In recent years there has been an increasing focus on initiatives that nominally sustainability and how do these efforts compare to those of fall into the realm of “culture” but which serve to integrate the way the McGill its peers and to best practices? community approaches sustainability. These include the adoption of a • Phase 2: Vision and Goals university-wide Sustainability Policy, the establishment of an Office of o Where do we want to be on sustainability in approximately Sustainability with multiple staff positions, and the creation of an $800,000 per 10 years? year Sustainability Projects Fund (SPF) that is funded by student fees matched dollar-for-dollar by the McGill administration. Dozens of student groups have • Phase 3: Action Plan emerged on campus with mandates to bring about socially and o How do we get there? environmentally beneficial change in the community. Also of particular The purpose of this Situational Analysis is to document McGill’s current interest is the emergence of applied student research (ASR) as an integrated sustainability initiatives and performance, situating those efforts relative to model that blends experiential learning with a problem-solving approach, each other and within a broader context of peer institutions and best often focused on the university as a model system. practices. It is intended to provoke questions and spark conversation. The Conversations about sustainability initiatives within the McGill community information presented here will feed directly into the Vision & Goals and Action Plan phases to come. often reveal a common story—progress has happened because of the personal commitment of a few individuals willing to work collaboratively across boundaries. There are, and have long been, pockets of dedication and activity What is McGill currently doing around sustainability? in many places across the university community. But the other side of this The McGill community generally approaches sustainability as: generally positive story is that until recently many of these efforts took place in isolation, lacking a sense of connection, shared purpose and broader A future orientation: working together toward a shared vision for a better support. future in a manner that integrates social, economic, and environmental dimensions. One of the stated goals of the Sustainability Projects Fund—also reflected in other recent efforts—is building a culture of sustainability at McGill. It is out of Within this conceptual framework, activities are categorized as they relate to this desire to integrate, institutionalize and scale up the sustainability efforts three broad realms of the university: academics, operations, and culture. of the McGill community that the Vision 2020 process was born. 3 How does McGill compare to peers and best practices? The briefest—and least illustrative—answer is “pretty well.” McGill earned a rating of mid-range silver in its recent AASHE STARS1 assessment. In many respects it is holding its own relative to peer institutions, even those with substantially more per-capita resources. And yet McGill is not entirely a sustainability leader. There are a number of comparable North American institutions whose across-the-board sustainability performance is better than McGill’s and there are many that demonstrate leadership and innovation around particular elements of sustainability. The Benchmarking and Best Practices sections of this report highlight some of the institutions from which the McGill community can learn. The homogenized “pretty well” answer hides a more complex story about McGill’s sustainability performance. There are areas where McGill is setting the bar for other institutions—the Sustainability Projects Fund is a model, as are initiatives around sustainable food systems and efforts to green the campuses—and there are areas where McGill lags substantially behind. Some of the lagging areas are easy to attribute to structural limitations—McGill’s historic infrastructure poses real challenges for energy efficiency and sustainable building, for instance. Yet there may be ways to creatively work around these challenges. This report is not comprehensive. It is limited by the availability of data and, in some cases, even of definitions. It is a product of a particular moment in time and inevitably reflects both the current climate on campus and the way that sustainability is currently understood at McGill. In spite of its limitations, however, this situational analysis puts the McGill community in a position to have a richer, deeper, more informed dialogue about where to go in terms of sustainability and in what ways McGill can lead. It will be an interesting conversation. 1 Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) Sustainability Tracking, Assessment