Where does U of T stand environmentally? It’s not an easy question to answer, so I decided to do a few informal surveys of the university community. I found that most people think U of T is well placed to serve as a leader in climate action in and around its immediate community Ontario. It has made significant progress in responding to the recent interest for sustainability initiatives.
Beth Savan of the Sustainability Office remarks that the new commitment by the university is “remarkable, especially in a time of recession.”
Yet many of the truly innovative campaigns have been spearheaded by students. The likes of Bike Chain, Hot Yam, Rewire, the Bee Collective, and the agriculture projects and community gardens around campus all point to the benefit of grassroots initiatives.
The university, on the other hand, has made some dubious decisions. It opted for the Western Climate Initiative—a regional commitment for action on climate change—over the Presidents Climate Initiative. The PCI is widely known as a much more ambitious pact between colleges to reduce greenhouse gases on campus. Opting for a loose network of goals instead of measurable and verifiable targets means that an opportunity has been lost, where meaningful progress could have been metered, weighed, and improved upon.
Good intentions persists, and dedicated souls keep the movement alive, but the sort of radical institutional change that the current climate demands is largely absent on our campus.
Savan agrees to a certain extent. Sure, she says, “in a place such as Ontario, where external triggers do not exist, we must rely on individuals and institutions to change behaviours collectively.” But to those who are impatient with the lacklustre efforts that the administration seems to pass off as progress, Savan urges that progress only comes with incremental change. The business of youth is to play the agent of profound change, but what these restless souls overlook is the fact that it is “very difficult for a large institution with financial constraints to move as rapidly as we should be moving.”
Savan makes a fine point by mentioning that the administration is not so blind as to overlook the fact that energy efficiency directly links to fewer expenses, which yields more leg room for research and development.
But we can’t lose sight of the fact that new projects mean new price tags, which will inevitably result in reticent responses. Instead of growing despondent, we must reframe the debate so that sustainability does not become an added burden, but is adopted as the norm.
The trick, and here I couldn’t agree with Savan more, is to be intensely aware of the tight timeline that Mother Nature presents us.
Budgets are behemoths, and the people who create them do all they can to maintain the status quo. To see more progress, future change agents must embrace this fact and realize a plan that would see sustainability incorporated into existing platforms.
All this being said, the university has made strides in the past year. The solar thermal system installed at the Athletic Centre is one such example. Recent debates in the UTSU campaign included discussions on banning plastic bottles on campus which were supported by well-informed platforms on both sides. The Responsible Investment Committee continues to engage the administration on proxy voting issues. And the sustainability fund dedicated to promoting green initiatives on campus is entering its second round, and hopes gain more prominence each year.
So what’s my verdict for 2009-2010? University of Toronto gets a passing grade of B. It has made some genuine attempts at this greening business, but it still has miles to go. And those miles will only be covered by those who mix equal parts blind optimism and ruthless pragmatism.
