McGill “walks the talk” of sustainability
Building on two years of consultation with over 1500 students, faculty and staff, Ď㽶ĘÓƵ today released Vision 2020, a sustainability strategy designed to guide the institution over the coming years. The Vision 2020 strategy embraces the university’s dual role in cultivating a commitment towards sustainability among community members, while at the same time creating the knowledge needed to make this future a reality.
Five years ago McGill students voted to create the Sustainability Projects Fund (SPF) with close to $850,000 annually to support sustainability initiatives. This fund, the largest of its kind in North America, has served as an inspiration for similar initiatives at numerous other universities.
McGill is a pioneer of sustainable food sourcing, purchasing over 30,000 kilos of produce, 3,000 kilos of beef, and 135,000 eggs annually from the Macdonald Campus Farm to serve in dining halls. Indeed, the McGill feeding McGill project was recognized with a silver medal for leadership in education given by the Institute of Public Administration of Canada (IPAC) in 2013. McGill is also the first university in Canada to be certified by the Marine Stewardship Council for sustainable seafood, and the first in Quebec to become a Fair Trade Campus.
over the past decade. Using the campus as a “living lab”, the energy management group at McGill has taken measures to reduce energy consumption that have paid off, including systematically replacing light fixtures with more efficient models and installing energy meters in 70 campus buildings in order to improve their energy efficiency. This latter project won an award from the Association quĂ©becoise pour la maĂ®trise de l’énergie in the Integrated Energy Management CategoryĚýlast year.
These are just a few examples of the existing culture of sustainability at McGill, which the Vision 2020 Sustainability Strategy aims to push further in the coming years. Reflecting the university’s commitment to the issue and with clear directions, priorities and benchmarks to be met, McGill’s Vision 2020 Sustainability Strategy provides the university with a roadmap designed to make it one of the leading places in North America to study and learn about sustainability in the coming years.Ěý
To read Vision 2020: A Sustainability Strategy for Ď㽶ĘÓƵ
For more on McGill’s Office of Sustainability
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