project participants - facilitiesnet · its culture of creativity and innovation, this has been an...
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ProjectParticipantsFinance & Administration Steven Parfeniuk, CFO Office for Sustainability Elaine Hanson Cathy Sloat Herb Sinnock Anna Pautler Wai Chu Cheng Finance Simpson Siu Facilities Services Jim Fletcher Chad Mansell Katherine Rinas Andrew Christakos Facilities Operations Gord Ide Chris Nanos John Spring Roger Bankuti Varoon Balliram Fabio DiRisio Godfrey Wijeratne Corporate Planning André Plante Brian Scannell Information Technology Sumon Acharjee Pat Burns John McCormick Paul Khangura Chris Adams Chris Descheneaux James Duncan Trevor Hanekamp Martin Nowakowski Purchasing Michael Burjaw Helen Kuan
Advancement & Corporate Communications Christine Szustaczek Faculty of Applied Science & Technology (FAST) Jocelyn Piercy Farzad Rayegani Jonalyn Sagisi Chris Beaver Dave Clark Oluremi Egiebor Chris Ferguson Michael Muller Lewis Mununga Judy Higginson Maria Luisa Manganaan Donna Newberry Tony Orlando Aravind Venkatapathy Dave Wackerlin Faculty of Business (FOB) David Nowell Doug Greenwood Faculty of Arts, Animation & Design (FAAD) Ronni Rosenberg Angela Iarocci Claire Ironside Elizabeth Littlejohn Doug Whitton Doug Donald Co-op Students Colin Buddin Jaspreet Gill Akhtarhusain Goria Andrew Henein Boris Jankulovski John Malapit Michael Oracion Muhammad Shahid Jashan Sidhu Harmeet Singh Ranveer Singh
Student Volunteers Michael Balon Brian Baxter Maddison Bonnett Erino Caporilla Eftal Cavlaz Henry Chan Bobby Choi Andrew Connell Jeric De Ramos Utkarsh Desai Sharanjit Dhanoa Anmol Farmah Jemel Ferdis Andrew Gujarati Shareef Habibulla Remedan Hamid Wilson Ho Yu Imamura Simon Jiang Uttam Kalletla Basel Kaltan Olayemi Labinjo Zhengzhu Li Diego Morales Anthony Mulders Holena Newton Michael Ovas Rideyjeet Palia Guillaume Perreault Marlon Rizk Anmol Sekhon Arwa Sheikhalzoor Charanjeet Singh Sharanjit Singh Erin Sutton Terry Sywanicz Kamil Szewczyk Corey Tallevi-Keller Michael Yalcin
Mentor Partners Garforth International, llc
Garforth International llc Energy Productivity Solutions
www.garforthint.com
Tel (USA): +1 (419) 578 9613 Fax: +1 (419) 578 6861
October 23, 2014 To Whom It May Concern, Working with Sheridan College to help them develop their ground breaking Integrated Energy and Climate Master Plan was one of the more exciting and rewarding projects that my team has had the pleasure to work on. From the onset it was clear that developing the plan had the full support of all parts of the College community, including the senior leadership and the trustees, along with college staff, faculty members, students and one of the most professional Facilities Management teams we have had the good fortune to work with. The role of the Garforth team was to assist the College team to develop the Plan, acting in a mentoring role. This approach was chosen by the College to ensure that every part of the plan was developed by the College. More importantly, the approach meant that every conclusion and recommendation of the plan came from within the College community, ensuring a sense of unparalleled ownership and support. The involvement of over 50 students working closely with the Facilities Management team in developing the energy models of every single building on the three campuses was a unique aspect that enhanced the quality of the plan and provided valuable hands-on experience for the students. Equally impressive has been the rapid steps to implement the plan following its approval at the end of 2012. The plan set a very challenging timetable to meet world-class energy performance levels by 2020, with the bulk of the major steps being completed by 2017. There is every indication that the College will meet these targets. Through the process they confidently expect to become a role model for Canada and beyond for the implementation, management and teaching of innovative breakthrough energy solutions. We whole-heartedly support the Sheridan College team for an award under the Building Operation Management’s FM Excellence Recognition Program. Best Regards Peter Garforth Garforth International llc Energy Productivity Solutions Email: [email protected] Tel: +1 (419) 578 9613 Fax: +1 (419) 578 6861 Mobile: +1 (419) 320 0664
2121 Boshart Way, Toledo, Ohio 43606, USA
298 Sustainability MARY ANN LIEBERT, INC. • Vol. 5 No. 5 • October 2012 • DOI: 10.1089/sus.2012.9929
Sheridan College (Ontario) is one of Canada’s lead-ing postsecondary institutions. Its four campuses, spanning three local municipalities and two pro-vincial regions, are located a short drive from To-ronto, North America’s fifth most populous city and one of the most diverse multicultural centers in the world. The college is well known for its leadership in applied education, preparing students for careers in visual and performing arts, business, community services, and technical fields, with an increasing fo-cus on applied sustainability. The college has long been recognized for its animation programs, with award-winning graduates and established relation-ships with companies such as Pixar, Disney, Dream-Works, and other prominent studios. This year, it was named the No. 1 animation and design school in the world.1
A Living Laboratory of Change and Multidisciplinary Thinking
As with many institutional sustainability initia-tives, there are no specific checklists or roadmaps to ensure success. Those closest to the design of cross-cutting initiatives will commonly refer to the criti-cal importance of leadership, student and employee engagement, partnership development, and an insti-tution’s ability to communicate its story to funders, as key success factors. At Sheridan, well known for its culture of creativity and innovation, this has been an iterative process of knowledge and capacity-building combined with a strong emphasis on the science behind the word sustainability itself. This combined approach has begun influencing greater levels of interconnectedness and trust between oper-ations staff and faculty, leading to accelerated learn-ing, improved decision making, and the creation of shared values2 within the institution.
This expanding living laboratory model, which uses campus operations to contribute to curricular and research innovation, continues to motivate new partnerships, placing students at the forefront of new, innovative thinking on sustainability.
“Sheridan’s mission continues to be focused on the delivery of a premier, purposeful educational experi-ence,” Jeff Zabudsky, president of Sheridan College, explains. “As an applied academic institution, pur-pose and global citizenship are inextricably linked and have become important symbols for our com-mitment to sustainability across operational, aca-demic, and applied research platforms.”
Aligned with Sheridan’s mission is industry and government’s thirst for applied knowledge around new processes, products, and tools that will drive innovation, efficiency, and differentiation across sec-tors. Not surprisingly, recent surveys point to large numbers of companies (70 percent) placing sustain-ability permanently on their management agendas (up 55 percent since 2010) and continuing to make the case for sustainability investments.3 Hence, the integration of strategic planning and sustainability is contributing to organizational change strategies that are leading to greater levels of integrated deci-sion making. These findings have important impli-cations for higher education as it strives to graduate students with next-generation skills and knowledge. As government funding agencies expect colleges and universities to help develop skills and solutions to the big challenges facing communities and industry, traditional academic structures, which have sub-optimized institutional resources due to competition and inefficient use of resources, are now being re-examined. Many opportunities exist in institutions willing to shift from traditional faculty structures in favor of new organizational models focused on clus-ters of societal challenges. These new models could greatly facilitate multidisciplinary teaching and re-search, further fueling living laboratory concepts, and they also have tremendous potential to save time and money in the process.4
As academic culture evolves in its ability to mount adequate real-time, responses to the accelerating complexities facing industry and local communities, new teaching and learning models will be developed to address climate, air and water pollution, required energy and carbon reductions, depletion of natural
Program Profile
Sheridan College: Building Foundations for Sustainability through Creativity and Innovation
“As an applied
academic institution,
purpose and global
citizenship are
inextricably linked and
have become
important symbols for
our commitment to
sustainability.”
— Jeff Zabudsky
MARY ANN LIEBERT, INC. • Vol. 5 No. 5 • October 2012 • DOI: 10.1089/sus.2012.9929 Sustainability 299
resources, hunger and poverty, and shrinking biodi-versity. Each one of these challenges will have impli-cations across academic sectors and will increasingly require interdisciplinary teaching, learning, and re-search models capable of bridging the gap between science and policy.
“Students, faculty, and staff who have recognized this historically significant moment in time will be first to seek out new opportunities and drive inno-vative new processes in society,” says Mary Preece, provost, Sheridan College. “The living laboratory model which we have adopted at Sheridan is un-questionably helping us build our internal capacity for change. Using our own operations as a test bed for new learning and tool development has already led to new applied research, innovative curriculum, partnerships, and regenerative business processes.”
Aiding Sheridan’s sustainability initiatives is the province of Ontario’s strong focus on green econ-omy initiatives designed to trigger innovation and academic transformation. In June 2012 Ontario and British Columbia assumed leadership positions around sustainability and policy in categories such as air and climate, water, nature, transportation, waste, energy, buildings, and innovation.5 Specifically, the province of Ontario was recognized for reductions in greenhouse gases and will likely follow British Co-lumbia in its carbon strategy. Alignment with these important trends is critical to the long-term com-petitiveness of academic institutions and requires the re-evaluation of tools and course designs with an understanding of transitions already occurring in cities, neighborhoods, homes, and offices. While cost and compliance (operations) have driven many first-generation sustainability strategies, second- and third-generation drivers are increasingly focused on establishing new knowledge through the develop-ment of stakeholder partnerships,6 prompting the reassessment of the roles of academic institutions within a broader community.
A Widening Mandate for Sustainability
With the support of a committed executive lead-ership team, Sheridan’s Office for Sustainability was given a strategic mandate for accountability in making significant reductions in Sheridan’s envi-ronmental footprint. Unique to its mandate was its responsibility to facilitate knowledge transfer in support of curriculum innovation, research, student learning, and community and industry partner-ships. Two key stages have defined Sheridan’s sustainabil-ity journey. The first continues to build support for greater levels of engagement and education and the second around building lasting foundations and partnerships for the success of its initiatives.
Engagement has played a critical role in Sheridan’s success. Its Leadership Council for Sustainabil-ity was established to help develop the institution’s goals and strategies around energy, emissions, climate mitigation and adaptation, water, materi-als, and waste and has become a springboard for innovation in curriculum and research. This cross-functional and interdisciplinary think tank has been opened up to external engagement with industry and community partners and is influencing the way the institution views its management practices and student learning experiences.
“It’s really about learning from the outside in. Where we see high levels of stakeholder engagement, we continue to witness very high levels of creativ-ity, trust, innovation, and applied knowledge being infused in curriculum,” notes Elaine Hanson, direc-tor of Sheridan’s Sustainability Initiatives. “A good example of this can be seen in our integrated energy master planning initiatives, where faculty, students, and staff have worked long hours to develop solu-tions to complex energy and emissions reductions for the institution.”
Hanson suggests that creating the space for knowl-edge exchange and systems thinking as a fun-damental framework has helped move Sheridan from a knowing to a learning community through its process of connecting growing numbers of interested faculty, across disciplines, with opera-tions staff in designing innovative approaches for the institution. What she and other members of the council have witnessed is a natural progres-sion from thinking individually to discussing as a group, which has led to more natural group dynamics, enabling Sheridan teams to structure better solutions to complex sustainability issues. The theory, part of a broader body of leadership research,7 has enabled Sheridan to reach out to a larger community and regional system of sustain-ability partners for solutions—from hosting student conferences with nonprofit organizations to part-nerships with leading technology companies that are helping to drive cultural change within their organization.
“This is a powerful concept in cultural transforma-tion that continues to develop as our understand-ing of interdisciplinary engagement increases. What these initiatives have enabled is a shift from short-term, reactive responses to symptoms, to generative responses addressing systemic root causes of issues,” asserts Hanson. “This shift is likely the sin-gle-most important leadership challenge and skill set of our time, and the more we can expose students, in any discipline, to understanding root causes of issues, the more we succeed in developing tomorrow’s leaders.”
Two key stages have
defined Sheridan’s
sustainability journey.
The first continues to
build support for
greater levels of
engagement and
education and the
second around
building lasting
foundations and
partnerships for the
success of its initiatives.
Sheridan’s Leadership Council for Sustainability
300 Sustainability MARY ANN LIEBERT, INC. • Vol. 5 No. 5 • October 2012 • DOI: 10.1089/sus.2012.9929
Scientific Foundations and Assessment Tools: The Natural Step and AASHE
Sheridan’s next stage continues to evolve around operationalizing sustainability. In 2010, the institu-tion was successful in attracting the internationally recognized leader on sustainable development and foremost cancer scientist, Dr. Karl-Henrik Robèrt to discuss the role of sustainability in academic insti-tutions and the implications for applied knowledge development. The presentation inspired and became a catalyst for examining the central role that academic institutions could play in developing tomorrow’s global citizens. It also served as an important springboard for collaboration with all levels of government, industry partners, and non-profit organizations in attendance, reinforcing the need for multi-sector collaboration around solving sustainability challenges.
“As an institution with a reputation for excellence in teaching and learning and strong industry and community relationships, the credibility of our sustainability program is imperative and hinges on producing tangible results rooted in sound scien-tific foundations and a strong business case to instill confidence,” Hanson says. “The goal is to continue to fuel a culture of innovation and to empower all employees to strive to embed sustainability into decision making, operating budgets, strategic and capital investment planning, and curriculum.”
With a centralized sustainability structure in the Office of Sustainability and the Leadership Council in place, the next step involved linking two strategic foundations to help guide Sheridan’s initiatives. The first was a commitment to a science-based frame-work and policy. The second was the development of metrics and assessment tools to measure the success of its initiatives.
Science-Based Principles and Metrics
One of the most common difficulties associated with the strategic deployment of sustainability initiatives is their association with the word sustainability itself. In general terms, sustainability refers to the Earth’s ability to sustain and regenerate itself, providing vital, life-sustaining ecological services that hu-mans depend on everyday. Such services include the ability to regulate climatic systems, air, water, fish populations, and a multitude of natural resourc-es that fuel our economic system. This common understanding, while obvious to many, becomes problematic as organizations move toward embed-ding the concept into decision making across busi-ness operations and, in academic institutions, across curriculum and research.
Various frameworks and definitions were consid-ered; however, one approach resonated across the institution. Sheridan based its policy on The Natural Step Framework for Strategic Sustainability Devel-opment,8 a robust, principled definition of social and ecological sustainability that provided logical guide-lines for decision making and a single, integrated ap-proach across operating groups and academic facul-ties.
Based on this shared and common understanding, Sheridan’s President’s Council approved and sup-ported Sheridan’s Institutional Sustainability Policy in 2011, which made public the institution’s will-ingness to serve as a role model in leading the way on sustainability in higher education. It committed itself to aggressively transforming its business prac-tices and linked sustainability to student success by committing to perform a restorative function through innovative curriculum development, public engagement, and partnerships with stakeholders.
The establishment of a common science-based defi-nition has begun to accelerate the pace of innova-tion and has ignited a flurry of exploration around the substitution of scarce minerals, the efficient use of mined materials, and the need to systematically reduce overall dependence on fossil fuels. Sheridan continues to look for ways to substitute its use of per-sistent and unnatural compounds and is transform-ing its purchasing strategies to support products, services, changing business practices, and suppliers who demonstrate sustainability through their poli-cies, practices, and products.
Triggering Action
With goals and plans being developed through its Sustainability Leadership Council, Sheridan enlisted the support of The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) and The Natural Step (TNS), to conduct its first institu-tion-wide sustainability analysis, which highlighted the institution’s major sustainability challenges, impacts, and opportunities, with implications for
Sheridan based its policy on
The Natural Step Framework for
Strategic Sustainability
Development.
Program Profile
Visual depiction of Sheridan’s evolving sustainability strategy
MARY ANN LIEBERT, INC. • Vol. 5 No. 5 • October 2012 • DOI: 10.1089/sus.2012.9929 Sustainability 301
governance, operations, strategic planning, and research.
“The analysis performed for Sheridan College served to highlight the tremendous opportunities that exist for an academic institution to develop teaching and learning programs, applied knowledge, and tools around sustainability,” says Pong Leung, director of Program Development at The Natural Step Canada. “Establishing the structure to further encourage multidisciplinary initiatives such as these will serve as a breakthrough example of innovation in an aca-demic institution.”
In 2012, Sheridan College became the first Ontario college and 16th postsecondary institution in Canada to report on sustainability through AAS-HE, exponentially increasing its levels of transpar-ency across its operations, curriculum, research, and strategic planning. The assessment tools provided a key mechanism to establish a baseline at Sheridan. This was critical to both understanding the institu-tion as a whole, providing individual departments and faculties with goals, and becoming a driver for new applied knowledge.
The integration of the TNS framework and AASHE’s Sustainability Tracking and Assessment System (STARS) proved to be strategically valuable and helped trigger one of the most innovative and inte-grated all-campus energy and climate initiatives in the country.
Leadership Council for Sustainability Initiatives
As a result of the TNS analysis and STARS assess-ment, two large-scale initiatives were launched: the college’s Integrated Energy and Climate Planning taskforce and Zero-Waste taskforce, both of which would establish an aggressive plan to systematically reduce and eventually eliminate the institution’s overall dependence on fossil fuels and to set aggres-sive targets for waste and water reduction.
Integrated Energy, Climate and Zero-Waste Planning
In 2010, a draft proposal was placed on the chief financial officer’s desk, which outlined a framework
for an institution-wide energy and climate initiative whose ambitious mandate would re-envision Sheri-dan’s energy future, set breakthrough performance targets, and begin developing highly integrated energy and climate curriculum for the college. “We purposely did not want to take a traditional operations-focused approach to developing this plan,” notes Hanson. “Building institutional capac-ity meant re-inventing how we engaged stakehold-ers, inviting deep pockets of knowledge already in existence in our faculties and business units, and opening up the dialogue with our partners. While we knew we would trigger interest, we did not predict this level of faculty and student involvement,” Han-son adds. “The result has been a wonderful partner-ship between academic programs and operational staff, strengthening relationships and connections between operational groups.”
Sheridan searched for a consulting partner with global energy expertise that was willing to act as a mentor to help codevelop the framework for the ini-tiative, help analyze current consumption patterns and supply-side implementation strategies, and help codevelop recommendations for implementing deep energy conservation measures and a renewable energy strategy over the next 20 years.
Garforth International LLC, an energy manage-ment consulting firm, was approached and chosen as a partner in codeveloping its strategy. A taskforce was formed representing students, facilities manage-ment, finance, information technology, office for sustainability, and academic faculties and framing goals were established collaboratively at the outset of the project with the full support of senior leadership. Goals included creating pathways to achieving at least 50 percent reduction in primary energy use, along with 60 percent reductions in greenhouse gas emis-sions, all within an acceptable internal rate of return on the entire energy investment portfolio. Recogniz-ing that outstanding energy performance is achieved as much through behavioral attitudes as it is through technology and construction, there was signifi-cant importance placed on building a campus-wide energy culture and driving innovative curriculum and research in the process. As of September 2012, over 100 students, staff, and faculty members have participated in this unique living laboratory project for the institution. “The demand for energy professionals with a broader, multidimensional view of energy manage-ment and sustainability is growing and is a largely unmet need,” Peter Garforth of Garforth Interna-tional says. “While most colleges and universities are structured around the traditional science, arts, and business disciplines and struggle to effectively create interdisciplinary programs, Sheridan’s approach to engaging expertise internal and external to the col-
Sheridan Leadership Council for Sustainability: Energy and Climate Taskforce
“The demand for
energy professionals
with a broader,
multidimensional view
of energy management
and sustainability is
growing and is a
largely unmet need.”
—Peter Garforth
“We purposely did
not want to take a
traditional operations-
focused approach to
developing this plan.
Building institutional
capacity meant
re-inventing how we
engaged stakeholders,
inviting deep pockets of
knowledge already in
existence in our faculties
and business units,
and opening up the
dialogue with our
partners.”—Elaine Hanson
302 Sustainability MARY ANN LIEBERT, INC. • Vol. 5 No. 5 • October 2012 • DOI: 10.1089/sus.2012.9929
lege could lead to becoming a North American role model for energy excellence, both academically and operationally.”
As sustainability, energy, and climate discussions move into strategic planning, businesses will require students with a broad set of skills to create sustain-able long-term outcomes for organizations and com-munities already facing uncertainty and short-term volatility. The approach taken by Sheridan encom-passes the technical, business, social, environmen-tal, and legal dimensions of energy in almost equal measures and will equip students with a new set of planning tools that will most certainly be required over the next decade. Since 2010, Sheridan’s Faculty of Applied Science and Technology (FAST) has partnered with many regional commercial, industrial, and institutional clients on energy assessments and retrofit projects in a bid to improve the competitiveness of their opera-tions. Many faculty members have taken on sustain-ability in the building sector through programs such as LEED and PassivHaus Institute standards.
“Our unique approach is driving new energy management curricula at Sheridan and has already begun impacting student learning and the ability of graduates to compete in a rapidly transforming global energy market,” says Herb Sinnock, man-ager of Applied Research and Sustainable Practice, FAST. “Students from mechanical engineering, elec-tromechanical engineering, and architectural tech-nology have been exposed to a wide range of tools, including those from the U.S. Department of Energy, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and Google, and participated in documenting all existing campus buildings, entering data into representative computer models.”
The comprehensive, multicampus examination of existing and planned building infrastructure has provided rich, new knowledge about Sheridan’s energy performance in comparison with other Canadian, U.S., and European institutions. The plan has also influenced the design requirements for Sheridan’s planned Hazel McCallion campus ex-pansion in Mississauga, ON, which is anticipated to be one of the most energy-efficient buildings in the country.
Running concurrently with Sheridan’s Energy and Climate taskforce is a dedicated Zero-Waste task-force, which has worked diligently to establish solid waste and water waste goals across Sheridan’s four campuses. This includes establishing diversion rates from landfill through recycling, repurposing, reus-ing, as well as averting waste through the reduction of consumption. Zero water waste goals include using minimum amounts of water in the most efficient way possible to satisfy a given need. Other innovative approaches being considered include capturing campus effluent and on-site composting facilities. Effluent would be treated and reused with a combination of more efficient fixtures and better management and distribution practices through mechanical and irrigation systems.
Emerging Interfaces for Sustainability
Over the years, Sheridan has begun examining the distinct connections between its existing fields of expertise in animation, visualization and digital media, and the growing need for new designs and interfaces around sustainability.
“Historically, it’s been difficult for designers to con-ceptualize new interfaces between natural and built environments to a degree that could affect change on any scale. To make meaningful change around ener-gy and emissions reductions, air and water pollution, and influence levels of organizational and commu-nity efficiency, we require new tools to aggregate and display data and environmental impacts in ways that will influence behavior,” explains Hanson.
Often described as the space or interface required to make “the invisible, visible,”9 Sheridan believes it can help develop new ways of motivating organizational and behavioral change for sustainability. Through partnerships with organizations such as Zerofoot-print, Sheridan can bring expertise and leadership in a market that could greatly accelerate the rate of cul-tural change in organizations. “Visualizing the soft architecture of buildings and understanding the col-lective impacts of new energy systems and processes will be critical to decision making in communities, industry, and government in the future,” says Ronni Rosenberg, dean of Faculty of Arts, Animation, and Design.
Program Profile
Student work: modeling Sheridan buildings,
one at a time
Sheridan Student Teams explore the feasibility of combined heat
and power (CHP) and district heating.
MARY ANN LIEBERT, INC. • Vol. 5 No. 5 • October 2012 • DOI: 10.1089/sus.2012.9929 Sustainability 303
In 2010, the college submitted a research proposal to the Global Alliance for Strategic Sustainable Development, an international alliance of univer-sities aligning sustainability research with action through collaboration with businesses, nongovern-mental organizations (NGOs), communities, and policy makers. The aim of the alliance is to build the scientific foundations that will inform and support the decision-making process. Founding partners were chosen for their advanced competen-cies within respective thematic fields and their clear understanding of the need for more effective inter-disciplinary and cross-sector cooperation. Sheridan is Canada’s only founding institution in the alli-ance, which includes leading academic institutions around the world: Arizona State University, Univer-sity of California-Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon Univer-sity, Blekinge Institute of Technology (Sweden), the University of Gothenburg (Sweden), and Radboud University Nijmegen (the Netherlands).
Sheridan’s Sustainable Design Research Lab (SDRL)
In 2011, championed by four faculty members, Sher-idan established its Sustainable Design Research Lab (SDRL) within its Faculty of Arts, Animation, and Design. The goal of SDRL is to explore the relation-ships between sustainability, design, and commu-nications by engaging in experimental and applied design research that will inform curriculum. Key areas of expertise include the integration of design, communication technologies, and media to address complex social, cultural, and technological issues through visual communication.
A close partnership has developed between SDRL and Sheridan’s Office for Sustainability, which is working on the development of communication and engagement tools for employees and students in order to help meet its institutional sustainability targets. Sheridan’s living laboratory model is further extended through the work of this unique lab as it assesses implementation strategies for the college and other institutions.
“Specific strategies which we are using will range from digital to print media, sustainability event design, gamification, and social marketing practices. We know we have already made an impact on Sheri-dan’s sustainability planning and its design. The next step for us will be to document our own case and others we have worked on that are relevant for oth-er academic institutions and organizations,” states Angela Iarocci, professor at Sheridan College/York University’s joint program in design.
The research activities of the SDRL also feed directly into curriculum, notably in Sheridan’s partnership-
program with the University of Toronto’s Commu-nications, Culture, and Information Technology (CCIT) bachelor’s degree program, its York Univer-sity honors Bachelor of Design degree, and its Bach-elor of Applied Arts Illustration program.
In each of these degree programs, a considerable amount of class time is devoted to course design and how students perceive themselves as local and global citizens, bringing increased awareness of their impacts, both individually and collectively. “The Sheridan President’s Creative Challenge for Sus-tainability provided an excellent opportunity for students to apply course learning to real-world applications based upon whole-systems analysis. Four student-group projects, developed in Sheridan’s Design Thinking II course, entered the challenge, which was open to all students, and were awarded $5,000 each to further develop their project work. These projects have led to implementable solutions to sustainability problems at the college, with pro-posals ranging from sustainable water usage in art supply disposal, an institution-wide Print Smart paper reduction campaign, and permeable pavement and living roof prototypes,” explains Elizabeth Lit-tlejohn, professor of Communication, Culture and Information Technology.
The York Sheridan Program of Design has also integrated sustainable design and sustainability top-ics within interaction design courses and has tackled a range of areas from ecolabeling to resource shar-ing services with organizations such as Partners in Project Green. Connecting students with external partners has helped model the type of collaborative process required in professional design practices and also creates opportunities for future employment and internships for Sheridan students.
In the Bachelor of Applied Arts Illustration program, sustainability continues to be integrated through Sheridan’s Interpretive and Technical Illustration Studies courses. Projects range from research and visualization of green roof solutions, advocacy for
The president’s Creative Challenge for Sustainability winners
A considerable amount
of class time is devoted
to course design and
how students perceive
themselves as local and
global citizens, bringing
increased awareness
of their impacts,
both individually and
collectively.
The Open Kitchen Project
304 Sustainability MARY ANN LIEBERT, INC. • Vol. 5 No. 5 • October 2012 • DOI: 10.1089/sus.2012.9929
Program Profile
food literacy through illustration and motion graph-ics, to strategies for carbon footprint reduction and sustainable business planning based on the B-Corp model. Collaborating organizations have included Hypenotic, a founding Canadian B-Corp, focused on meaningful marketing for value-driven brands (www.hypenotic.com), Sustain Ontario, an Ontario, cross-sectoral alliance that promotes healthy food and farming (http://sustainontario.com/), and many nonprofit organizations based in the greater Toronto metropolitan area. The Sheridan Sustainability Design Lab is having a tremendous impact on course innovation and is representative of Sheridan’s applied education man-date—rooted in active learning and connecting students directly with sustainability issues. Beyond coursework, faculty members such as Pro-fessor Claire Ironside have begun leading key work-ing groups to develop site projects, for example, teaching gardens, partnerships with community and kitchen gardens at student residences, rooftop gardens, remediation of interior courtyard spaces with sustainable infrastructure, experimenting with permeable surfaces, and investigation of solar charg-ing stations and bus shelters. These are a true testa-ment to Sheridan’s growing ability to ignite ideas and translate them into implementable projects.
Summary
The education of the next generation, who are increasingly becoming citizens of the world, will require fundamental skills and a systems approach to solving and understanding some of the most com-plex and challenging issues of our time. For their part, Sheridan students continue to explore new ground through coursework, evolving and highly applied campus initiatives, and extracurricular opportunities to become engaged in reshaping Sher-idan’s sustainable future. Next steps will continue to explore mechanisms for financing sustainabil-ity through green revolving funding opportunities across its campuses and further developing its liv-ing laboratory engagement process and multidisci-plinary initiatives.
A key to its continued success and creative evolution has been the combination of a sharp focus on the fundamental principles guiding its progress and its ability to let the initiative evolve organically and cul-turally throughout the organization. Much like the many variations in a musical masterpiece, Sheridan’s
sustainability initiatives have ignited a flurry of cre-ative variations through a concerted focus on core foundations of science and the metrics which have driven its success.
References
1. A. C. Review. Top 100 schools for animation, gaming, and design. Animation Career Review, April 17, 2012. http://www.animationcareerreview.com/articles/top-100-schools-animation-gaming-and-design (last accessed 7/17/2012). 2. Porter ME, and Kramer MR. Creating shared value. Harvard Business Review, February, 2011, p. 4.3. MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Con-sulting Group. Sustainability nears a tipping point: Special report sustainability and innovation. Man-gelsdorf ME, and Holland RW (eds.). MIT Sloan Manage Rev 2012;53(2):69-74.4. Capaldi ED. Intellectual transformation and bud-getary savings through academic reorganization. Miller M (ed.). Change Magazine, August, 27, 2009.5. Corporate Knights. 2012 Green Provinces Report. Corporate Knights magazine. http://www.corpo-rateknights.com/sites/default/files/green%20prov-inces%20report%202012%20final.pdf (last accessed 9/20/12).6. Clarke A, and Kouri R. Choosing an appropriate university or college environmental management system. J Cleaner Produc 2009;17(11):971-984.7. Scharmer, O. Theory U: Leading from the Future As It Emerges. Massachusetts Institute of Technol-ogy, Boston, MA, 2007.8. Robèrt K-H, Schmidt-Bleek B, Aloisi de larderel J, et al. Strategic sustainable development—Selection, design and synergies of applied tools. J Cleaner Pro-duc 2002;10:197-214.9. Cortese, AD, and McDonough W. Education for Sustainability. Second Nature, 2001. www.second-nature.org/pdf/snwritings/articles/AccTheTrans.pdf (last accessed 9/12/2012).
Address correspondence to:Elaine HansonOffice for Sustainability Sheridan College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning1430 Trafalgar RoadOakville, Ontario, Canada L6H 2L1
E-mail: [email protected]
The Sheridan Sustainability Design
Lab is having a tremendous impact
on course innovation and is representa-
tive of Sheridan’s applied education
mandate—rooted in active learning
and connecting students directly with
sustainability issues.
sheridancollege.ca
Building Automation System
