Sustainability at Royal Roads University

Recently, my Environmental Sustainability class listened in on a series of lectures about Sustainability at Royal Roads University (RRU).  I was surprised to find out that RRU has included the environment in their development scheme since their beginnings in 1996.  As the university used to be a military college there were many improvements to make towards a sustainable future.  The university also rests upon a National Historical Site, Hatley Park.  So, invested interest on the environment was already in place as part of its protection lies in that new development can only occur on previously developed areas.  RRU has certainly stuck to its environmental commitments earning a silver ranking in Sustainability, Tracking, Assessment & Rating System or STARS.  STARS allows universities to gauge their relative sustainability progress.  Click here to learn more about the STARS rating system. 

RRU’s Sustainability Office has outlined 5 key initiatives as the current focus of RRU:

1)      Greenhouse Gas Management

2)      Going “Grid-Positive”

3)      Managing the Transportation Demand

4)      Eco-sensitive Siting and Hertitage conservation

5)      University Stewardship

These initiatives were given rise to by RRU’s Sustainability Plan.  The Sustainability Plan is a long term plan for RRU to continue to improve its current environmental impact while the university is growing.  Their plan hopes to accomplish the following goals:

·         Teaching sustainable leadership on the challenges of Climate Change;

·         Taking the lead and responsibility as environmental/social stewards in partnership with the surrounding community, and in particular the local First Nations.

·         Being environmental stewards of local & global ecosystems represented on the campus grounds

·         Taking an holistic and eco-centric perspective, goals, and approach to sustainable solutions, drawing on the diversity and expertise of faculty, staff, and students;

·         Ensuring sustainability is ingrained in RRU’s Academic mandate.

·         Facilitating collaborative solutions with working professionals and integrating a participatory approach to green innovation and tangible solutions for environmental, economic, and social issues .

·         Reducing GHG emissions by 50% below 2007 levels by 2020.

·         Becoming carbon neutral by 2010, in support of the Province of BC’s Climate Action Plan.

·         Going “off-grid” by 2018.

·         Containing and selecting development that follows green building design thereby safeguarding heritage designation and local ecosystems.

·          Supporting and leading sustainable initiatives within academics, research, and community engagement.

RRU has become a leader in creating a chemical free cleaning method used on campus that was implemented ten years ago.  Many of the harsh chemical cleaning agents used in schools and around your home are unnecessary and unhealthy.  At RRU the custodial staff uses microfiber cleaning cloths.  These cloths are environmentally friendly and better for the staff and students.  They provide equivalent cleaning power and can be used over 400 times before a new cloth is needed. This method of cleaning can also be incorporated into your households as microfiber clothes are available for purchase by companies like Blue Wonder Cloths. 

One of the most interesting advancements at RRU, is their commitment to community.  In their attempts to go grid-positive, they have involved the surrounding community as future customers of their potential geothermal field.  Here is a youtube video of Dr. Allan Cahoon, president of RRU, discussing the Universities hope for the possibilities of their geothermal field.

As you can see, RRU is a leader of Universities when it comes to sustainability initiatives and actions backing them up.  It is extremely important that RRU receives student, staff and community support in its goals.  Its commitment to becoming a sustainable business is ongoing and in need of constant attention.  I am very proud to be a student of such a responsible and leading University when it comes to sustainability.

Implications of Unsustainable Development

Open vs. Closed Systems

Unsustainable development is often created when there is ignorance towards the links between the 3 spheres of sustainable development.  In order to look at the sustainability of a development, it must be considered a closed system, where the only input is the sun's energy and there should be only heat as an output.  The old way of developing included open system economics:

Image From: http://www.southernbackpacker.com/valuing%20the%20environment.html



The new way of developing a sustainable system is to use closed system economics.  Making developers responsible for their products waste and recycling it back into the system if possible.  This will ensure the only output will be heat and the only input should be the sun.

Unsustainable Systems
An unsustainable system or open system is defined by a weighted look at one or two of the three critical components of sustainable development.  This usually results in the collapse of another sector of sustainable development and eventually a collapse of the system.  

When the world was much "bigger", meaning more land per person, often developments were creating using an open system framework.  An open system assumes that you can take what you need from the Earth to create a development and send out any waste from the development into the environment.  In the past, this idea possibly wasn't all that bad because the Earth was still "big" and could assimilate the waste and renew its resources.  As population and development began to grow, the Earth became a great deal smaller and unable to renew itself from the waste (output) and natural resources we were using (input).  Environmental vitality became a massive issue as economy and human health were being degraded.  When creating a development, the focus is to insure they are long lasting and prosperous and thus the inputs and outputs need to be managed.  This can be difficult as the world is not in a steady state; every day the human population grows exponentially.  In the last 12 years, we have gone from 6 billion to 7 billion people on this planet.  To watch the population grow visit the world clock by clicking on this link.

Every time our population increases it puts more stress on our Earth and it makes it harder to create sustainable developments.  The demand for resources grows, yet our Earth stays the same size and renews itself at the same pace it did when there was half the population there is today. This requires an increase in the efficiency of our developments.  There is a constant demand for the system to be continually improving.  Not only is the growing population changing the way we manage sustainable developments, but the nature of our environment is changing every day.  Every day the Earth's orbit changes slightly, plate technonic shift, the sun radiates more and our climate changes.  The complexities of our natural world and the uncertainties of our future make sustainable developments extremely hard to structure and require continuous improvements.  The environment is not the only sphere that is ignored when creating new developments.  Too much emphasis on environmental factors often results in economic failure requiring private or government funding. 

Alberta Oil Sands as a Classic Example

Some examples of unsustainable developments are the famous oil sands in Alberta.  This is a classic example of placing a large amount of weight into the economic sphere while the social and environmental components of sustainable development crumble.  The oil sands development has not been completely ignorant of the environmental impacts their development will have currently and to future generations.  They are mandated by the Government of Alberta and Alberta’s Sustainable Resource Development to completely restore the ~1000km² disturbed area to at least equal value of the ecosystem that was present before development. 

Can the Oil Sands really be restored to an Ecosystem of equal value?

Currently Disturbed by the Oil Sands   

                       

Undisturbed Northern Alberta Wetlands

 

This mandate does not take into account the extent of the current impacts on the environment during development.  These impacts may not be seen until it is too late and the environmental destruction cannot be undone.  There is also rising doubt for the ability of developers to completely restore such a large area of disturbed and polluted land.  The major problem is the nature of the previous ecosystems. These wetlands were created over hundreds of years and are a habitat for many endangered species.  These endangered species have been forced from their natural habitats and restoration won't take place until years after development ceases.  It could be too late. To view Alberta’s current plan for wetland restoration on the reclaimed oil sands, click here.

The oil sands are currently experiencing large lawsuits from the native people who inhabit the region and have been using the Athabasca River for fish and water for many years.  The native people have recently experiencing drastic changes in water quality and quantity since the oil sands development has come to town.  Here is a youtube video of David Suzuki investigating this issue, even Alberta Environment is ignoring the social and environmental issues arising.  These issues are bound to cost the oil sands developers a great deal of money.

The oil sands are a large scale example, but unsustainable developments can happen on a small-scale as well.  It is important to understand the extreme implications of poorly planned and executed developments.  The emphasis on creating sustainable solutions is very important when enhancing the economies of developed nations or building the economies of undeveloped nations.

Related Links

Defining Sustainability and unsustainability: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3341323
Unsustainable Canadian Salmon Aquaculture: http://www.elements.nb.ca/theme/oceans06/janice/janice.htm
The Unsustainable World: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12834-unsustainable-development-puts-humanity-at-risk.html

A Look at Sustainable Development

The classic definition of sustainable development is a straight-forward way of capturing many aspects of sustainable development. Sustainable development is about meeting the needs of today without compromising the needs of future generations.  This basic sentence can be expanded into a more complex definition of sustainable development. 

Focusing on the Fundamental Needs

Beginning with the focus on human “needs” the definition introduces the concept of minimizing consumption and moving towards the basic human needs.  To further understand what sustainable development is, the basic human needs should be defined.  This task is daunting as there are exhausted lists of the basic human needs by many organizations. The fundamental human needs include the physical needs for survival that are clean air, potable water, nourishing food, health and shelter from the elements. Often most lists also include some definition of social needs which become difficult to agree on such as love and belonging, security, sexual fulfillment, education, equality, freedom and creative expression.

Inhabitants of one Earth

Globally, it is obvious that many of these basic needs are not being met.  Poverty can often lead to physical needs not being met and can leave humans in a distressed state.  Desperate for the fundamental needs, unsustainable measures take over many times affecting the environment; decreasing the availability and abundance of clean air, potable water and nourishing food.

Image: Poverty Striken Bangledash's Polluted Waterways

In the modern world, economy plays a large role in obtaining an individual’s basic needs.  It seems that the only needs that do not relate to a countries economy are love and belonging.  The state of the economy relies on the environment.  Our world continually renews its resources and strives to maintain an ecologic equilibrium as it does an impeccable job; it allows our human race and economy to thrive as we live within its carrying capacity.  Unfortunately, the focus on the fundamental needs of the human race has been exasperated. 

This is especially evident in western societies where people are “consumer whores” for lack of a better term.  This can be psychologically linked to consuming to fill social needs.  This suggests that some globalization may be required to ensure sustainability on a global scale. As we are all inhabitants of one Earth, there is an obligation for countries to work together to establish the fundamental human needs in parts of the world that are lacking.

Spotlighting the Future and Current Advancements

Another key concept of the traditional definition is spotlighting the future by developing lasting environmental health, economic growth and social equity.  The definition places equal value on the needs of the people today with the needs of the future inhabitants.  This is extremely imperative when creating new developments, often the focus is on present economic benefits and not on future economic costs from loss of environmental health.  Recently, the popularity of creating development that has economic longevity has taken into account the needs of future generations and the reliance on environmental health to meet those needs.  Society is become more concerned with the state of the environment and in many countries environmentally friendly items are being sought after. 

For example cradle to cradle products which focus on developing products that are used and recycled back into new products.  This is opposite of the current cradle to grave paradigm where products are made cheaply, used for a limited time and are put in a landfill.  Some examples of cradle to cradle projects certified by a third party certification process by McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC) can be found here.

Image: Cradle to Cradle Production

One example of sustainable development being marketed is in Freiburg, Germany in a solar city called Sonnenschiff.  They have taken the net zero developments and moved one step up creating residencies and commercial spaces that produce 4x the power they consume.  This has been accomplished through implementing passive solar heating and lighting, solar panels, roof top gardens, vacuum insulation, phase change materials, rooftop rainwater recycling and collection, greywater recycling, woodchip boilers, multi-use area and pedestrian friendly.      

To learn more about Sonnenschiff solar city click here. 

Image: Sonnenschiff Solar City's Roof Top Solar Panels

Image References

http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.phpURL_ID=44767&URL_DO=DO_PRINTPAGE&URL_SECTION=201.html

http://inhabitat.com/sonnenschiff-solar-city-produces-4x-the-energy-it-needs/new-3-44/

http://www.bluehaired.com/2009/12/cradle-to-cradle-hype-or-hope/