CDDA | SBC

Le moment est enfin venu... vous pouvez maintenant acheter vos billets pour le 2^e Colloque annuel sur le développement durable en affaires!!! Un grand événement organisé par des étudiants pour informer les autres sur la durabilité environnementale d’entreprise. Le colloque aura lieu le vendredi 13 novembre 2009 de 11 h à 19 h dans la salle Desmarais 4101. Les billets sont seulement 8 dollars et comprennent quatre groupes d’experts, deux discours, un dîner organique, une pause-café équitable, un événement de réseautage social avec service de traiteur (comprenant un billet pour une boisson alcoolisée) et un paquet-cadeau pour les participants. Sérieusement, pourquoi ne pas venir ? Vous avez peut-être des classes, aucun problème ! Vous pouvez assister à la session 1 (11 h à 15 h) ou 2 (15 h à 19 h) pour seulement 5 dollars.

Non seulement est le prix incroyable, mais vous aurez la chance d'entendre des idées intéressantes provenant de plus de vingt professionnels d’entreprises, professeurs et activistes. Les sujets abordés seront :

• Politique mondiale sur l’environnement
• Étudier les enjeux du développement durable dans l’industrie alimentaire, l’industrie de l’automobile et l’industrie de l’énergie
• Modèles émergents de commerce environnemental
• La RSE à travers les âges
• Discours par Philippe Crabbé (Professeur d’uOttawa - Économie de l’environnement) ET Jonathan Westeinde ((CEO, Windmill Development Group)

Pourquoi attendre ? Achetez votre billet aujourd'hui au bureau de la FÉUO (Centre universitaire 007) à partir de 9 h – 17 h du lundi au vendredi.

Pour plus d'informations, consultez le site Web ou contactez le sbc.uottawa@gmail.com

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The time has finally come ... you can now buy your tickets for the 2nd Annual Sustainable Business Conference!!! A great event organized by students to educate others about environmental sustainability in business. It will be held on Friday November 13^th 2009 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the room Desmarais 4101. Tickets are only $8 and include 4 panels, 2 keynote speeches, an organic buffet lunch, a snack/fair trade coffee break, a catered networking event (inc. one drink ticket) and an attendee gift package. I don't know about you, but that sounds like a pretty awesome deal! Seriously, why wouldn't you come? So maybe you have classes, no problem! You can come to either session 1 (11 a.m. to 3 p.m.) or 2 (3 p.m. to 7 p.m.) for only $5.

Not only is the price amazing, but you’ll get to hear great and interesting insights from over 20 business professionals, professors and activists. Subjects covered will be:

• Global Environmental Policy
• Examining Sustainability Issues in the Food, Auto and Energy Industries
• Emerging Environmental Business Models
• CSR Through the Ages
• Amazing keynote addresses by Philippe Crabbé (Professor of Environmental Economics, University of Ottawa) AND Jonathan Westeinde (CEO, Windmill Development Group)

Why wait more? Buy your ticket today in the SFUO Office (University Centre 007) from 9 am – 5 pm on weekdays.

For more info, check out the website OR email sbc.uottawa@gmail.com

Danielle Perreault J

Gearing up for Green Weeks!

I hope you’re getting excited for Green Weeks coming up! Wait…you don’t know about it yet?

Green Weeks is a two week series of workshops and events to showcase the work towards sustainability on our campus. This year, the first two weeks of November are dedicated to Green Weeks. It’s an SFUO initiative that is in its third year, and Sustainable Development Office is happy to help. We’ve developed a long list of amazing events, so be sure to check out:

• Free stores during the two weeks
• Information fairs on November 10 and 12^th
• Screening of Borealis – Big Wild event put on by CPAWS and MEC
• Students on Ice with professor Copland
• E-Waste drive
• Workshops including: alternative menstrual products, eating sustainably and cheaply, and more!
• Tar Sands Art and Wine & Cheese with artist Louis Helbig
• Movie screenings: FLOW and Food, Inc
• Sustainable Business Conference
• Keynote address from David Suzuki (November 23^rd)

“Green” has been gaining a lot of support at the University of Ottawa. The University is committed to ensuring sustainability in every sense of the word, and many students and the SFUO are working toward sustainability in amazing ways. I, for one, can’t wait to see what so many people are working on.

For folks on facebook, check out the Green Weeks group where you will find all of the events for the two weeks.

Updates during and after Green Weeks to come!

- sarah jayne

On se prépare pour les Semaines Vertes 2009!

J'espère que vous avez tous hâte aux semaines vertes! Attend une minute... vous ne les connaissez pas?

Pour une période de deux semaines, les Semaines Vertes visent à vous impliquer et sensibiliser aux initiatives de développement durable sur le campus de l’Université d’Ottawa; avec des ateliers et évènements. Cette année, les deux premières semaines du mois de Novembre sont dédiées aux Semaines Vertes. C'est une initiative de la FÉUO et le Bureau du Développement Durable qui est dans sa troisième année. Nous avons développé une liste d'événements fabuleux à ne pas manquer :

• Gratuiteries lors des deux semaines
• Foires d’Information – 10 et 12 Novembre
• Film : Borealis – un événement organisé par la SNAP et MEC
• « Students on Ice » avec professeur Copland
• Collecte de déchets électroniques
• Ateliers: produits alternatifs menstruel, manger de façon durable et à moindre coût, et plus encore!
• Art inspiré des Sables bitumineux et un vin et fromage avec l'artist Louis Helbig
• Soirée cinéma: FLOW et Food, Inc
• Colloque sur le développement durable
• David Suzuki – 23 Novembre

Les initiatives « vertes » ont gagné beaucoup de soutien à l'Université d'Ottawa. L'Université s'engage à assurer la durabilité dans tous les sens du mot. De plus, il y a de nombreux étudiants et la FÉUO qui travaillent dans le cadre de la durabilité de façon étonnante. Personnellement, je ne peux pas attendre de voir tous ces projets; le résultat d’un excellent travail!

Sur Facebook, visitez le groupe de Semaines vertes, où vous trouverez l’horaire et une description de tous les événements.

Mises à jour pendant et après des Semaines Vertes à venir!

- sarah jayne

Defining Sustainable Development

Jon wrote a post in January about defining Sustainable Development. Here, we’ll revisit and maybe go a bit further, just for fun. Right now, I’m taking a course on environmental policy and sustainable development. Here, sustainable development refers to development in the developing world. Not just, “development” as in “progress” or any other way you might fathom before we get into more definitions.

We’re at a university. And we work in sustainable development for the university, which is not a developing country. So, what does it mean here? Universities have a huge role to play in becoming the leaders of sustainable development. They are building and growing, researching new ways of doing things (integrated environmental approach anyone?), and teaching people who are going to influence the world we live in. At the university, we’re looking at environmental “sustainability” as a goal.

So, Jon took the pretty well known definition, coming from an important report (the last of a series of reports that got progressively better and more action oriented, but still weak) called “Our Common Future”. In it she states that sustainability is development that meets the needs of current generations without jeopardizing the ability of future generations to meet their needs. We have to look out for ourselves but also the people who

will live here after us. If you ask First Nations peoples, that’s probably not enough. The next part where we see a more anthropocentric model produced by the mainstream, where the environment fits into a graph!

As you can see, we have to balance all of these things within our current system to find what is truly sustainable in every way.

If we look back to international development, for a long time (generally before these reports) sustainability and development were not seen as compatible. The global South and the poor have often been blamed for the atrocities of environmental degradation. Fortunately, this thinking has changed. The North is very much responsible (through many ways and many hands) for environmental degradation, and we have the tools to alleviate it, and teach folks, wherever they live, to do their part too.

Here’s a question: how can we ensure that important terms that need not be co-opted remain intact? How do we make sure that sustainable development remains in the agenda (or better yet, an integral and holistic part of the agenda) and not as a buzz word?

On our campus, sustainable development means working with the engineers to make sure that our buildings and the way they operate is efficient and energy-savings. It’s about making sure water fountains are accessible to reduce the consumption of bottled water. It’s about organizing events around environmental issues, connecting students with things they can get involved in and passionate about (like Green Weeks!) and having a kick-ass recycling program that is being adopted by universities and colleges across Canada. To state a few.

- sarah jayne

Between a Rock and a Staircase

Click here to link to video

Have you seen the piano stairs video? Really? Are you serious, cause it’s posted like everywhere. I even added a link from my Facebook account. Anyways you should take a look because it is pretty awesome and it reveals one of my big pet peeves; lazy stairs people.

Allow me to preface with my list of annoying lazy people things. First are people who take the elevator when they could easily take the stairs, next are people use the handicapped button to open doors, then it’s people who don’t turn off their computers at night, and finally people who stand still on the escalator.

Each is especially annoying in its own magic way (Seriously you can’t open the door with your hands? Cause the more you use the handicapped button for your own lazy purposes the more you increase the likelihood that it will break when a person who really needs it comes by – Or standing on the escalator? I know it isn’t the biggest crime in the world but if you don’t have a mobility issue what’s the point? I mean it is technically taking longer to just stand there than to walk up or down the stairs you realize). But what bugs me the most, more than the fact that it is a real sign of la-zi-ness, is the fact that it gobbles up energy.

Interlude - I want it to be known that I recognize the legitimate need to use an elevator. As I alluded to earlier, mobility issues, fatigue, travelling more than 3 stories, I get that; but using an elevator to go one or two floors (especially down) is simply too much. I was at a party a couple of weeks ago and this issue came up. A guest admitted that one of his great triumphs came from an elevator encounter. He was on his way up to something like the tenth floor when some people got off on the second floor. As the elevator doors closed he shouted out “Really sucks when the stairs are broken, eh?”. Classic.

Sorry, I really had to get that out. Anyways, I would love to calculate the amount of energy that is being consumed so that this ridiculously heavy metal box can carry up two flights of stairs. If ever there was a waste of resources, this is it. The sheer magnitude of environmental degradation that is inflicted on the planet to draw oil out from the ground just so that you avoid a little bit of cardio is mindboggling.

I would really love to have these piano stairs installed on the U of O campus. I know we don’t really have any escalators to speak of but getting people off the elevator is totally worth the installation cost of these stairs. I am just saying, people really need to start taking responsibility for the amount of energy they waste needlessly. And if we can also give people some much needed exercise during the day, I am all for it.

-jon

Share the Land, Share the Food

A little while ago, I came across this website for a program that runs in Toronto called Not Far From the Tree. The basic premise is that this group of volunteers goes around picking the fruit out of the yards of those who register on their site. They then divide the fruit 3 ways between themselves (as payment for their work), the owner and a charitable organization such as the food bank or a soup kitchen.

I thought this was a great idea since I myself have an apple tree and a grape vine that I rarely find the time to harvest and thus the majority of the fruit go to waste. I started to look into the possibility that Ottawa has such a program, and it kind of does.

Vegetable Patch operates a land sharing program within Ottawa’s city centre. The idea is that you offer up your unused land, they come in and make a totally organic garden and care for the plants all season long. In return, you get a weekly vegetable basket from the stuff grown in your yard and elsewhere around the city. Isn’t that great?

Having a program like this on campus would be fabulous. We already have planters all over campus. Would it be that much more difficult to plant edible plants instead of just decorative ones? We also have a lot of green space with shrubbery that could be replaces with berry bushes, gardens that could be home to carrots and potatoes, walls that could support grape vines. The possibilities go on and on!

The food produced on campus could be put to good use helping students and the community at large enjoy fresh, locally grown foods they may not be able to afford otherwise. Or I guess they could listen to their hungry bellies growl while they look at some generic bushes...

[On a side note, I contacted the fine folks at Vegetable Patch about my fruit and they said they would consider coming out to my place, which is not in the city centre, to pick my fruits next year YAY!]

Tiana [http://sassy-red-head.livejournal.com]

Les points importants de SPECTRUM 2009 | Key points from SPECTRUM 2009

Il semble que les colloques/congrès sur le « développement durable » ont augmenté au cours des dernières années. La raison est assez simple : la durabilité est très importante ! Pour être honnête, la durabilité peut être un concept difficile à appréhender et certains pourraient penser qu'il n'est rien d'autre qu'une tendance, en particulier du fait que les entreprises font beaucoup de « lavage vert » avec leurs produits, services, événements, etc. L'affaire est, la durabilité ne touche pas seulement l'environnement ; elle affecte également la société et l'économie. C'est pourquoi les colloques/congrès sont idéales pour éduquer les gens à propos des solutions durables !

SPECTRUM 2009 a touché ce concept à différents niveaux avec des experts en matière de politiques ainsi que des dirigeants communautaires et des représentants de tous les ordres de gouvernement, du milieu universitaire, du secteur privé, de groupes communautaires et d’organisations non gouvernementales (ONG). De plus, SPECTRUM 2009 s’est associé à l’initiative Choisir notre avenir, une approche intégrée pour assurer la durabilité et la résilience de la région de la capitale nationale adoptée par la Ville d’Ottawa, la Ville de Gatineau et la Commission de la capitale nationale. SPECTRUM a également étendu au-delà d’une journée pour inclure un atelier de groupe de travail sur les politiques pour les étudiants!

Les points importants que j’ai retenus de ce colloque/congrès sont :

· Afin de créer des solutions durables, il est préférable de travailler en tant que communauté. En collaborant ensemble et en impliquant la communauté avec la procédure décisionnelle, il vous est plus facile d'éliminer les obstacles. Cela s’est produit avec le Quartier Vauban en Allemagne.

Pour investir dans notre avenir, ne pas commercialiser l'environnement, mais commercialiser le concept d’une « qualité de vie ». Par exemple, investir dans une meilleure infrastructure pour nos cyclistes. (1) Ce serait avantageux pour notre santé et (2) ce serait excellent pour le tourisme en créant une expérience agréable pour les autres qui permet d’explorer la ville avec facilité, tout en se sentant en sécurité.

Nous respirons tous le même air et partageons la même terre ; il n'a que de sens pour travailler en tant que communauté! Informez-vous sur des solutions durables et impliquez-vous ! Commencez en participant au Colloque sur le développement durable en affaires le 13 novembre 2009 ! (Plus d'infos à venir)

Danielle Perreault

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It seems that conferences about “sustainabilty” have increased over the past years. The reason is quite simple: sustainability is very important! To be honest, it can be a difficult concept to grasp and some might think that it is nothing but a trend, especially since companies are “green washing” many of their products, services, events, etc. The matter is, sustainability does not only touch the environment; it also affects society and the economy. That is why conferences are ideal to educate people about sustainable solutions!

SPECTRUM 2009 touched this concept on different levels with policy experts, community leaders, all levels of government, academia, the private sector, community groups and NGOs. Most interesting is the fact that this conference was partnered with Choosing our Future: a joint City of Ottawa, City of Gatineau, National Capital Commission initiative to help build a sustainable and resilient National Capital Region. SPECTRUM has also extended beyond the one-day conference to include a Policy Workshop for students!

The main things I can take back from this conference are:

· In order to create sustainable solutions, it is best to work as a community. By working together and being involved with the decisional process, it make is easier to break down barriers. This is seen with the Vauban Quartier in Germany.

· For investing in our future, don’t market the environment but market to the “quality of life”. For example, invest in a better infrastructure for our cyclists. This would (1) be advantageous to our health and (2) be great for tourism by creating a pleasant experience for others by feeling safe while exploring the city with ease.

We all breathe the same air and share the same Earth; it only makes sense to work as a community to make it better! Inform yourself about sustainable solutions and get involved! Start by attending the Sustainable Business Conference on November 13^th 2009! (More info to come)

Danielle Perreault

Greening Your Education

School’s in! It is probably appropriate to talk a bit about courses on campus. Why? Because they can contain sustainable development content, or they can be environmentally conscious in the way they are run. We’ll touch upon the latter first because it’s pretty basic: less paper, less resources, less waste.

Tips for students and professors to green their classroom (these items generally must be mutually agreed upon)

• Double-side your assignments, or print them single spaced or on already used one-sided paper
• Have assignments submitted online or via email
• Use online course material (also lowering costs to students for copyright material)
• Encourage taking notes and not printing all slides or readings on paper
• Buy recycled paper notebooks, or reused one-sided paper notebooks (can be purchased at Reprography)

As far as sustainable content, there are a number of courses offered that talk about issues of sustainability and sustainable development. The next blog post will likely be an offshoot of some definitions I’ve come across in the current class I’m taking, Environmental Policies, Natural Resources Management and Sustainable Development (DVM 3125), but for the instant I wanted to discuss the basics around courses offered.

Sustainability, in the many senses of the word, is garnering more interest in the public sphere. So it makes sense that more and more students are studying it, whether it is a small component of a class (an integrated approach would certainly be effective in education more students on sustainability issues) or the focus of a class. The topics and cases are abundant: developing countries, improved environmental practices in land use or corporations, technology, etc.

There are environmental studies and sciences, geography, law, engineering, management and development courses that are relevant to sustainability. Any time resources and the use of technology or management and policies are discussed; any time urban planning or climate issues are discussed, any time marginalized communities or issues of inequality are discussed – sustainability can be brought into the analysis. These courses make it more obvious how sustainability needs to be seen not as a separate theory or practise, but as an integrated approach to changing the world around us.

There are resources devoted to research on campus as well. A number of the institutes support students conducting research in a field related to sustainability – ranging from the obvious, like the Institute of the Environment, to the not so obvious, like the Institute of Women’s Studies or the Institute of Population Health.

Visit the sustainable development website for more information about curriculum choices (including a list of sustainability related courses), and other campus initiatives.

-sarah jayne