Concordia sustainability update

The news leading up to 27th annual United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as COP27, was humbling. The UN Environment Programme released its annual Emissions Gap Report on October 27, showing that current government commitments to lower their greenhouse gas emissions will result in a global temperature increase of 2.4–2.6 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, significantly higher than the 2015 Paris Agreement goal of “well below 2°C, preferably 1.5°C.”

The report affirmed that everyone on this planet — including and especially institutions like Concordia — has a vital role to play in stopping this slide and driving our world’s climate in the right direction.

The university was well represented at COP27 in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt. Leading Concordia sustainability researchers from building engineering, design and computation arts and philosophy brought their expertise to the conference. A documentary film about a game-changing hydroelectric power project, Innavik: Leading the Way to a Clean Energy Future, by Aphrodite Salas, assistant professor of journalism, had its premiere at the Canada Pavilion.

As Concordia’s Sustainability Action Plan enters its third year, and with COP27 wrapping up tomorrow, it’s timely to report on some important actions that the university has taken in the past year to address climate change.

Sustainability Action Plan

Our second annual Sustainability Action Plan progress report will be released in a few weeks and will include a detailed dashboard highlighting our progress in five key areas:

• Food, including an increase in the sourcing of local and sustainable foods and ensuring environmental and social sustainability are prioritized in our Food Service and Catering contracts
• Waste, including a waste-diversion-rate increase from 34 per cent in 2020-21 to 40 per cent in 2021-22, and the launch of the CANO reusable mug program
• Climate, including a shift to renewable natural gas and installing five new electric charging stations in the Faubourg Building garage
• Research, including the launch of a $100,000 Sustainable Transitions Team Research Initiative and a $20,000 outlay to improve the visibility of sustainability research at Concordia at conferences and events
• Curriculum, including the hiring of a designated sustainability curriculum developer and the launch of the Sustainability Co-Design project

Sustainable Development Goals

In 2020, Concordia made a commitment to contribute to the realization of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The following efforts reflect our commitment:

• Concordia is conducting a Voluntary University Review (VUR) to assess our current SDG-related activities and establish priorities for future concerted action, to be published in early 2023
• The VUR draws on the insights generated by the 17 Rooms exercise, which brought together various Concordia community members to brainstorm about how the university can have even greater impact in relation to the SDGs
• Some of the preliminary takeaways from the 17 Rooms exercise can be reviewed on the SDGs website
• We held our spot among the best 100 universities in the world in the 2022 Times Higher Education (THE) Impact Rankings, which tracks the progress of the international higher education sector toward helping achieve the SDGs
• The THE Impact Rankings placed Concordia 48th globally for our efforts to Reduce Inequalities, 20th globally for Climate Action, and fifth in the world for our work to promote Smart, Resilient Cities and Communities

Research

Countless Concordia researchers across all disciplines are making great strides in advancing the SDGs and sustainability initiatives. Other research and faculty activity include:

• Today’s announcement at the Canadian Science Policy Conference in Ottawa of the launch of the Sustainability in the Digital Age think tank at Concordia, which will explore how digital innovation can support the SDGs in three primary areas:   
  o   Research and innovation
  o   Policy and best practices
  o   Training networks of multidisciplinary innovators, researchers and practitioners
  
• Introducing the Electrifying Society initiative, which features the expertise of more than 140 researchers from different disciplines to address the technical challenges of electrification as well as policy and social development requirements; Electrifying Society is built on three themes:
  o   Creating a smart, sustainable and healthy built environment
  o   Building resilient community energy and transportation systems
  o   Planning and governance for social equity and citizen engagement

Climate action in Montreal

Concordia is an active contributor and catalyst with respect to climate action in our city, in particular through our work with the Montreal Climate Partnership, whose steering committee I sit on. In addition:

• Ursula Eicker, Canada Excellence Research Chair in Smart, Sustainable and Resilient Cities and Communities, is a leading member of the working group focused on building decarbonization
• Professor Eicker, co-founder of the university’s Next-Generation Cities Institute, and PhD student Nathalie Voland are both Montreal Climate Partnership members and recently helped launch the zero-carbon buildings accelerator, which will provide building developers with the tools and resources to make the industry more sustainable

Sustainable investments

The Concordia University Foundation remains at the forefront of responsible investing and has taken several important steps. In the past year, the foundation:

• Is on track for its 2019 commitment to achieve 100 per cent sustainable investments by 2025 with the recent completion of an 18-month process of revising and transforming its investment policy
• Allocated $15 million in investment, the only Canadian university among the participating nine foundations, to the Great Canadian ESG Championship, with a goal of bringing more transparency to the sustainable fund management market
• Partnered with BMO to become the first Canadian university to develop a sustainability-linked financing deal
• Signed the Climate Charter for Canadian Universities, committing to leverage its assets in strategizing for a smoother transition to a low-carbon economy

For more in-depth information, the Concordia University Foundation’s 2021-22 annual report will be issued by the end of November and can be accessed through the Financial Services website.

In addition, the university launched a Sustainable Investment Practicum in collaboration with Metropolitan Life for students in the John Molson School of Business.

Our commitment

As the above list — which is only a snapshot — clearly shows, we place the utmost priority on our pledge to support the SDGs and reach a net-zero campus.

These strategies and programs are directly in line with our serious commitment to decolonization and indigenization and being socially responsible, such as can be seen in the President’s Task Force on Anti-Black Racism, which just released its final report and recommendations, the Indigenous Directions Action Plan and the EDI action plan.

Furthermore, the work we are doing is beginning to gain international attention. Last week, thanks to a recent Concordia University Magazine article, we were visited by diplomats from five Nordic countries to discuss multidisciplinary approaches to tackling the climate crisis, renewable energy and decarbonization.

But for all these accomplishments, it is also the case that we still have much to do to reach our net-zero goal by 2040.

While I’m extremely proud of how Concordia is contributing to the climate change agenda, I am even more grateful to know that our successes in these areas are driven by our passionate, engaged community.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me with your input, feedback and ideas to help us jointly overcome the world’s most urgent challenge.

Sincerely,

Graham Carr
President and Vice-Chancellor