Sustainability at RRU

I am currently in my second semester in the Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science at Royal Roads University (RRU) in Victoria, BC. I was happy to hear that my university had a sustainability plan to address topics in waste, transportation and energy, to name a few. RRU’s sustainability plan has five key initiatives:

·       Greenhouse Gas Management

·       Going “Grid Positive” (after off-grid)

·       Transportation Demand Management

·       Ecological-Sensitive Siting and Heritage Conservation

·       University Stewardship

Although they have not met these goals, they are on a good path to achieve these goals in the future. They plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by the year 2020 as well as becoming carbon neutral by 2010. Through a Greenhouse Gas Management plan, RRU will address options to reduce and offset of the major sources of GHGs.

RRU has already reduced their energy consumption by 30% from 2001 to 2005 and plans to go ‘off-grid’ by 2018 with hopes of becoming ‘grid-positive’. We have been waiting for the completion of the new building, that is supposed to be ‘green’ and efficient in many ways. They have discussed a few approaches that could be taken including small scale, composting facility, cogeneration facility and wastewater treatment facility. I think its very important for all schools to take these types of initiatives and find alternate sources for energy with the intentions of becoming off-grid, if not at least trying to improve their consumption thus far.

 The transportation management plan needs work. A 2007 study completed at RRU determined that 90% of students and faculty come to the school in single occupant vehicles. The university offers parking at a very cheap price, practically providing an incentive for people to drive to RRU rather than take a bus or bike. Some good suggestions were brought up in class, possibly by giving incentives to those who do find other means of transportation, even carpooling helps. Since it is a known fact that vehicles are a leading cause for pollution through emissions, addressing transportation as an issue is a step in the plan to become sustainable.

Through university stewardship, RRU has an extensive recycling and composting system. They successful divert 72.6% of waste from reaching the landfill. This type of recycling and composting should be done in every school and business around the world. Why wouldn’t we want to divert as much waste from the landfill as we could, we don’t have a bottomless pit to keep dumping all our waste. Soon we will run out of space to put our waste, Hartland landfill is the only proposed landfill for Victoria, with no intentions of finding another site. There are also benefits of diverting this waste, not only can recyclables be reused or put back into manufacturing and compostables can be composted into nutrient rich soils.

 I was also interested in learning that RRU uses chemical free cleaners. They use microfiber towels and water to clean the entire campus. This may seem a bit unhygienic, but they have tested surfaces, and the combination of microfiber and water is able to clean counters just as good as disinfectants. They it won’t leave behind the residues that disinfectants will.

RRU has made some great leaps in sustainability through their action plans and methods of practice. I am proud to say that my school is a leader in sustainable practices.

Information from this blog was taken from a Sustainable Development Series class, taught my Dr. Ling.