Campus Tour of University of British Columbia
posted by Niles Barnes on September 24th, 2007 Go to comments
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Ah Canada, a piece of my heart is still there. I visited British Columbia for the first time 4 weeks ago flying into Vancouver on my way north to Squamish, (a beautiful town sitting between the Howe Sound and the massive granite monolith “The Chief”). I spent 10 days camping and rock climbing enjoying beautiful weather and a nice respite from the hot, muggy weather back home. On my last day before coming back to Lexington I took a tour of UBC’s campus with Gillian Allan the Communications Assistant from UBC’s Sustainability Office. During my tour, I saw many highlights and took a few pictures that illustrate a few reasons why UBC is recognized worldwide as a leader in sustainability.
Enjoy!
The tour began at the UBC Sustainability Office directly across from the recently created Sustainability Street (how apt!). Exploring the way the built environment can integrate into the existing natural environment, storm water management (using a closed loop system), a geothermal heating system and the use of re-used building materials were all employed.
As we took Sustainability St. on towards the student center, our guide Gillian pointed out and described some other policies in place at UBC. They have a pesticide free policy for all of the grounds on campus, meaning that no artificial herbicides, pesticides or other chemicals can be used until all other options have been exhausted. In fact, the policy is only broken to protect rare, heirloom varieties as a last resort measure.
UBC also has an ethical purchasing policy, only 100% Fair-Trade Organic coffee is sold on campus and there is a student run food co-op and bike shop.
In addition to a really cool student center (great recycling program including both pre and post-consumer composting), bike shop, food co-op and used book exchange shop they also have a great wellness center for all students. As we know here in the US, healthcare is quite troubling (more accurately termed ’sick care’ here in the States). Canada has universal healthcare (with small differences depending on provinces etc). At UBC you also pay for an additional above and beyond plan, cost dependent on income level with no cuts in services for lower incomes. This plan includes massage for super low co-pays. An awesome program. Learn more about here.
Next stop was the campus bike shop. Students, faculty and staff can rent, fix, purchase and volunteer to help support the campus bicycle fleet. The full service shop is located in the student center and is fully student run and operated.
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I also took a tour of the Green Buildings on campus starting with the C.K. Choi Building for the Institute of Asian Research (pictured first, below). Built before there was LEED certification, it serves as one of the most unique institutional buildings I’ve been in on a campus. It has composting toilets, re-used timber and brick, natural lighting and air and zero VOC paint and carpet.
We also toured the new Life Sciences Building (LEED Gold certification) and was blown away by the architecture and quality of natural lighting and design. A super high-tech building, it has electronic temperature and light controls that adjust depending on time of day and temperature. It houses numerous labs that are on average 25% more efficient than standard scientific laboratories. Further, during construction of the Life Sciences Centre, 80% of the construction waste was recycled or reused.
The tour of campus was great and I appreciate the time the Sustainability Office at UBC gave for our visit. True leaders in the movement, it was an inspiring visit. Last stop was the beach (only a 10 minute hike from the sustainability office) it was nude, so sorry, no cameras allowed 