The Sustainability Scholars Program is an innovative paid internship program. We match UBC graduate students with on- and off-campus sustainability partners to work on applied research projects that advance sustainability across the region. Managed by the UBC Sustainability Hub.
Apply your research skills to real-world sustainability challenges
Get paid and gain valuable professional work experience
Develop applied skills and knowledge under the guidance of a mentor
Build your professional network and enhance your career prospects

How It Works

The program is open to full-time UBC graduate students from any program or discipline. As a Sustainability Scholar, you work under the guidance of a mentor on an applied research project that supports their organization's sustainability goals.

Apply

UBC Sustainability Scholars work on applied research projects across a wide range of environmental, economic and social sustainability topics. See our list of current paid internship opportunities.

Project Library

The Scholars Project Library contains hundreds of reports, charts, tool-kits, and more, documenting the applied research produced by Scholars since 2010. A useful body of knowledge to support further research around sustainability.

Fraser Estuary Research Collaborative (FERC)

A new stream in the Sustainability Scholars Program focusing on applied research with the goal of restoring and protecting the endangered Fraser Estuary.

Partner with us

Partner organizations are essential to the UBC Sustainability Scholars Program. Partners provide work experience for UBC graduate students and benefit from their applied research.

Meet the scholars

UBC Sustainability Scholars come from all kinds of backgrounds and academic disciplines. Scholars stand out for being passionate about sustainability, having a strong work ethic, and for their applied research skills.

Fund scholars

Climate change, biodiversity loss, and growing inequality are some of the most urgent issues facing our world today. Support from donors will allow scholars to make a direct impact through organizations doing the on-the-ground work needed to address climate change and other critical sustainability challenges.

Program History

Sustainability Scholars’ projects have been helping to move the dial on sustainability across the region for over 10 years. Find out more about our history, milestones, and impact.

Project Library

The purpose of this study is to conduct quantitative analyses to determine the energy conservation measures (ECMs) that tend to drive the most cost-effective approaches to minimizing GHG emissions from new buildings. This study will enable the City of Surrey to provide builders and other stakeholders a clear picture of what they should focus on (that is, which ECM options to prioritize) in order to achieve greater GHG emissions reductions.

Partner: City of Surrey
Keywords: green buildings

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2018
Harnavpreet Channi

The City of Surrey aims to achieve 80 percent reduction in GHG emissions per capita by 2050 (below 2007 levels). Currently, several leading cities across the world are implementing innovative and effective policies and programs. This study aims to further develop a “policy ecosystem framework” that the City of Surrey can use to systematically reduce GHG emissions from the existing building stock by summarizing the multi-pronged strategies these leading cities are taking through the market transformation lens.

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

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2018
Jiaxin Li

The Township of Langley plans to develop a corporate building energy policy for new and major renovations for city-owned and operated buildings. The intent of this project is to mainly focus on creating a corporate building policy that is centered on BC Energy Step Code adoption for Part 3 buildings. Research was conducted to identify the corporate building policies of other local governments in British Columbia, and understand which type of facilities these policies apply to, what are the capital cost related implications of adopting these policies, and what are their associated benefits.

Partner: Township of Langley
Keywords: green buildings

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2018
Ghazal Ebrahimi

Over the past years, the Engineering Department of the Township of Langley has expended considerable effort to evaluate the latest advancements in LED street lighting technology. Recent studies have determined that the latest LED street lighting fixtures outperform existing HPS lighting fixtures and can be directly retrofitted on existing freestanding steel poles, without pole modifications. This report draws on an analysis of the Township’s current street lighting inventory to develop an LED conversion plan that maximizes both performance and value.

Partner: Township of Langley
Keywords: green buildings

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2018
Tomy Dibanda

To achieve the Upper Steps of the BC Energy Step Code, builders will need to adopt techniques and incorporate substantial changes in building design, layout, framing techniques, airtightness, system selection, and materials. The objective of this research project was to identify and formulate market segmentation approaches that would support more strategic outreach, education and training opportunities for different builder segments on high performance new construction, including sessions related to the BC Energy Step Code.

Partner: BC Hydro
Keywords: green buildings

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2018
Marysol Escamilla

This paper reviews the current science on preponderance of legionella risk with direct load operations in demand response management. The findings reveal that demand response events in a thermally-stratified or stagnated electric hot water system can provide conditions for greater culturability of legionella and colonization of the water storage tank. These may be associated with two forms of legionellosis.

Partner: BC Hydro
Keywords: green buildings, water

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2018
Christiana Onabola

Despite recent progress made toward greater self-sufficiency, healthy community design, and economic development, Indigenous communities in Canada experience ongoing challenges including high energy costs and inadequate housing. This research is intended to 1) identify current practices in Indigenous community energy planning and implementation and determine where additional support for such efforts is needed, and 2) provide recommendations on how BC Hydro can assist Indigenous communities in advancing conservation and energy management. 

Partner: BC Hydro
Keywords: green buildings, social sustainability

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2018
Halina Rachelson

This project will be used as a case study to evaluate the impact that heat pumps have had on Skidegate households and the southern Haida Gwaii electric grid. This is done in two respects within this report. First, changes in residential electricity consumption from before and after the heat pump installations are evaluated. Second, potential impacts to grid power quality are evaluated due to the high penetration of the heat pump motors. 

Partner: BC Hydro
Keywords: green buildings

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2018
Sean Smillie

In an effort to promote energy efficiency in the real estate sector, the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board initiated the Real Estate Energy Efficiency Program (REEP) in 2014. The program is designed to teach energy literacy to REALTORS® so they can incorporate energy efficiency seamlessly into the sales process. Approximately 80 home energy assessments were completed in select Vancouver Island communities as part of this program. This project looked into these energy assessments to understand better whether rebates and incentives provide additional benefit to the homeowners.

Partner: Vancouver Island Real Estate Board Nanaimo
Keywords: green buildings, sustainable development & green economy

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2018
Grace Alindogan

Textiles are one of the largest growing waste streams in the world and are expected to continue to grow due to more frequent consumption and greater demand from “fast fashion”. The objectives of this report are to provide research knowledge regarding mechanical and chemical textile recycling technologies commercially available and under development for prevalent fibres used in industry (polyester, nylon, cotton, wool), and potential impacts of dyes and finishing chemicals on recycling processes.

Partner: Metro Van
Keywords: waste management & recycling

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2018
Katherine Le

This project estimates the quantity of fat, oil, and grease (FOG) from household food waste entering the regional wastewater system of Metro Vancouver. The FOG loadings were calculated using data from food diaries where the residents of the region registered the food they disposed of ‘down the drain’ (i.e., through sinks, food grinders, and toilets), and the fat content of the food, using nutritional information databases. 

Partner: Metro Van
Keywords: food systems, waste management & recycling, water

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2018
Marco Vazquez Perez

For this project, a literature review was first conducted on the current use of surfactants in commercial products. Next a database was developed based on inventories taken from grocery stores, pharmacies, and general stores around Metro Vancouver with a focus on down-the-drain products containing high concentrations of surfactants. The ingredients of each consumer product were classified into specific surfactant groups and analyzed for potential load on Metro Vancouver's Wastewater Treatment Plants (WWTPs), ecological toxicity, and methods for removing them from the wastewater stream.

Partner: Metro Van
Keywords: waste management & recycling, water

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2018
Jason Asnis

Transportation accounts for 42% of the Vancouver region’s total greenhouse gas emissions. While efforts to encourage alternative modes of transportation are ongoing, the private automobile is still the dominate mode of transportation in the Vancouver region and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Metro Vancouver is prioritizing the electrification of vehicles at both the corporate and regional level. This report aims to provide insight into best practices in EV adoption strategies in order to inform the development of a Metro Vancouver Electric Vehicle Roadmap.

Partner: Metro Van
Keywords: transportation

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2018
Sean Bailey

Dog waste has a high pathogen content and treatment methods must ensure that the potential to adversely impact human or environmental health is eliminated. Additionally, the sustainability of the program needs to be ensured by assessing the potential environmental, economic and social impacts as well as the logistical and regulatory considerations. In this study, the current management method in Metro Vancouver is evaluated alongside other treatment options.

Partner: Metro Van
Keywords: waste management & recycling

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2018
Kaitlin Lovering

Fungal pathogens are natural components of healthy forest ecosystems, nevertheless, they can have a negative environmental and ecological impact when large areas of forest are affected. The purpose of this project was to estimate the extent and virulence of K. deusta in the Metro Vancouver region, to characterize the rate of spread of the disease within and between trees, to determine if climate change may be a contributing factor to its virulence, and to identify strategies for the management of the disease within Regional Parks.

Partner: Metro Van
Keywords: ecological systems

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2018
Marieta Marin Bruzos

A leading education institution, the region’s largest employer, and a pseudo-municipality, the University of British Columbia (UBC) boasts a complex campus food system. Achieving sustainability in this sector is key not only to achieving the institution’s own health and environmental goals but affecting change at other levels of government. However, understanding the breadth of this system is challenging. Using an asset mapping methodology, this project visualizes UBC’s food landscape, focusing on what it has and in the process, illuminating gaps.

Partner: UBC Wellbeing
Keywords: food systems, sustainability in education

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2018
Wendee Lang

Beverage choices are influenced by the “food environment,” which is characterized by the variety, price and quality of food and beverage options present at the consumer level (National Collaborating Center for Environmental Health, 2015). The UBC Okanagan campus is unique in its setting and food environment. This is a preliminary report on the administration of the Perceptions of Sugar-Sweetened Beverages Survey at UBC Okanagan. The final results from this project will inform implementation of a Healthy Beverage Initiative (HBI)  and guide the development of strategies that specifically enhance UBC Okanagan’s environment.

Partner: UBC Wellbeing & UBCO, Voice 4
Keywords: food systems, sustainability in education

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2018
Morgan Alford

This literature review explores the concepts of inclusive education and inclusive teaching within the scholarly literature from several different approaches and perspectives to help contribute to building a foundational understanding of what it means to engage in inclusive teaching in a university setting, and more specifically, to help create a shared understanding of what inclusive teaching could mean for the larger project of Inclusive Excellence (IE) at UBC.

Partner: UBC Wellbeing & Student Diversity Initiative
Keywords: social sustainability, sustainability in education

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2018
Michelle Gautreaux

The purpose of the project was to develop a community resilience framework (CRF) and explore the ways in which the Centre for Community Engaged Learning (CCEL) at UBC contributes to the various processes, experiences, and outcomes linked to community resilience. The CRF is intended to serve as an assessment tool that can be utilized to facilitate reflexivity and collaboration that will enable the Centre to orient its programming toward building community resilience.

Partner: UBC Wellbeing & Centre for Community Engaged Learning
Keywords: social sustainability

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2018
Amber Heckelman

The aim of this project is to identify areas of needed support and build capacity around Teaching Assistant (TA) wellness in departments across UBC. Professional development programs for university-level teaching assistants often don’t included formal lessons on maintaining TA wellness. This gap in training places university level teaching assistants at risk of experiencing more stress and inappropriately addressing teaching related experiences that have a negative impact on their wellness.

Partner: UBC Wellbeing & Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTLT)
Keywords: social sustainability, sustainability in education

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2018
Nicole Malette

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