Sustainability Scholars Program

The purpose of this project was to provide recommendations on how the City of Vancouver can assist SRO and subsidized housing buildings to divert their waste. The report includes research to identify barriers and issues that impede implementation of zero waste strategies, research on measures that have been or are being implemented by other jurisdictions, an estimate of the amount of solid waste generated from SRO and subsidized housing within the City.

Partner: City of Vancouver
Keywords: zero waste, waste management & recycling

This report discusses research conducted during the summer of 2016 on the potential value of establishing a 2030 District in BC. Information was extracted from interviews with participants and leaders from other Districts and staff from the coordinating non-profit Architecture 2030, as well as from a literature review. Findings indicate that a 2030 District in BC could realize a number of key benefits.

Partner: BC Ministry of Energy and Mines & City of Richmond
Keywords: green buildings, leadership & behaviour change, sustainable development & green economy

This report provides an overview of thermographic technology and its applications in evaluating building energy efficiency.  By reviewing this report, it is expected that readers will be informed of both the benefits and the challenges of using thermal cameras to survey energy efficiency, and will be better equipped for evaluating the feasibility of incorporating this technology in municipal programs. 

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

Compared to other intensively managed and diversified farms, the UBC Farm is a highly integrated farm system. This allows the farm to manipulate a wholly contained food system that ranges from food production to processing and consumption across an agricultural and forested landscape. The purpose of this project was to help clarify the farm system components and relationships between them. This involved developing a concept map of the farm system then building a data index and and an evaluation sheet using the framework.

Partner: Centre for Sustainable Food Systems at UBC Farm
Keywords: ecological systems, food systems

The Healthy Built Environment Linkages Toolkit is a guide to designing and creating a healthier built environment. It is based on health evidence research and informed by expert opinion. The toolkit was developed in 2014 for the BC Healthy Built Environment Alliance, a network of public health, planning, and design professionals. This research project was a review of new food systems literature since 2014. The research started with identifying key search terms and databases. Relevant articles were summarized and assessed. The strength of each link in the evidence diagram, was updated based on the number and quality of studies and findings supporting it. A number of new impacts and health outcomes were added as a result of this review.

Partner: Provincial Health Servcies Authority
Keywords: ecological systems, food systems, social sustainability

The GreenCare team focuses on issues relating to energy, environment and sustainability including recycling and composting at the Lower Mainland Health Organizations (LMHOs). The purpose of this project was to move forward GreenCare’s communications strategies and help in shaping the direction of their communications in the future. It was a combination of both a research report and pieces of online communications content. It included content writing for the GreenCare website, reviewing KPIs to track website trends, creating key metric reports, reviewing online engagement strategies, and developing a video proposal and script for a GreenCare video.

Partner: Fraser Health Authority 
Keywords: social sustainability

The purpose of this report is to identify areas of improvement for the Solid Waste Research Collaborative (SWRC) and provide a series of recommendations based on a comparison of similar collaboratives. The report includes a literature review highlighting best practices for research collaboratives and a summary of interviews with six of research collaboratives from Canada and around the world. 

Partner: Metro Vancouver
Keywords: sustainability in education, waste management & recycling

This report summarizes the current state of science for several priority invasive species and recommends the most effective control techniques for these plant species in Metro Vancouver. Techniques range from mechanical, manual, cultural, biological and chemical control. Where knowledge gaps remain, this report also identifies opportunities for future research.

Partner: Metro Vancouver
Keywords: biodiversity, ecological systems

This report details the impact of climate on the forested ecosystems of the Water Supply Area (WSA) of Metro Vancouver. It examines disturbance and climate history in the area, including a general discussion of how drought impacts forested ecosystem, followed by a more detailed discussion regarding the history of wildfires, insect outbreaks, and drought within the WSA. The report also includes an examination of future trends within the region.

Partner: Metro Vancouver
Keywords: ecological systems, water