University of Toronto at Mississauga
Campus Sustainability Assessment Progress Report
August 2004
Completed in the summer of 2004 by Chelsea Stewart, under the supervision of Professor Tenley Conway
Funded by the geography department of the University of Toronto at Mississauga
Table of Contents
Introduction to UTM’s Campus Sustainability Assessment 3
Expectations of UTM’s Campus Sustainability Assessment 3
Methods 4
Recommendations for future sustainability assessments at UTM 5
Appendix 1: Indicators Completed for UTM 6
Appendix 2: Acknowledgements and Contact Information 24
Appendix 3: References 25
Introduction to UTM’s Campus Sustainability Assessment
Campus sustainability assessments are taking place at many universities throughout Canada and the US. They attempt to give a holistic assessment of a campus by identifying areas in which the university is progressing towards sustainability and areas where work is still needed. Because universities are on the leading edge of research, innovation, and teaching, they should be leaders in the sustainability movement.
UTM’s initial campus sustainability assessment took place during the summer of 2004.The assessment aims to give a clear, holistic picture of the progress that a campus is making towards sustainability. The most common definition of sustainability is meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. This definition of sustainability includes both ecological and social factors.
The framework used for this assessment was developed by Lindsay Cole at the Sierra Youth Coalition. The framework consists of over 170 indicators of campus sustainability, grouped into ten sections. Each indicator measures a particular aspect of sustainability.
What follows is a progress report that covers expectations of the assessment, progress that was made on the assessment, recommendations from the assessment, and recommendations for future assessments.
Expectations of UTM’s Campus Sustainability Assessment
The goals of the project this summer were quite simple. The first goal was to collect as much information as was readily available, and to complete as many indicators as possible. The second was to identify those indicators which were not readily available, but could be collected with a reasonable amount of effort. The eventual goal of the project is to have collection of these indicators integrated into coursework, and to have students get credit for collecting the information.
UTM’s Campus Sustainability Assessment is by no means complete. Recommendations that have been made from the completed indicators should be considered and implementation strategies put into place, but collection of the incomplete indicators should also be a top priority. As the old saying goes, “You can’t manage what you can’t measure”.
Methods
The framework used in UTM’s campus sustainability assessment was draft II of “Campus Sustainability Assessment Framework”, developed by Lindsay Cole. It is divided into two broad sections: people and ecosystem. The people section measures social aspects of sustainability; the ecosystem section measures ecological and environmental aspects of sustainability.
Each of these sections is further divided into five subsections. The people section is divided into health & wellbeing, knowledge, community, governance, and economy & wealth. The ecosystem section is divided into air, water, land, materials, and energy.
Several indicators are included in each sub-section for a total of 175 indicators. Most indicators have a short-term benchmark, and a long-term goal defined by the Sierra Youth Coalition. The short-term benchmark is meant to give campuses a goal for the near future; the long-term goal is a target or the sustainable state for that indicator.
To determine which indicators to target first, several meetings were held with Paul Donaghue, UTM CAO, and Mark Overton, Dean of Student Affairs. The framework was then presented to the Principle’s Table by Mark Overton. At this point indicators where the information already existed and indicators that UTM either did not have or would not release the necessary information were identified. As a result of these discussion, it was determined that the water, materials, air, energy, and land sub-sections would be targeted in the initial assessment effort.
An example of an indicator from the ecosystem section is: materials sub-section indicator M-1, percent of base buildings completed in the previous three years that have reached the level of “silver” or higher under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program. The indicator is calculated by determining the total number of buildings completed in the last three years that have been certified to LEED silver, gold, or platinum standards, divided by the total number of buildings completed in the last three years; multiply by 100. UTM’s score was zero; the short-term benchmark for this particular indicator is at least 50%; the long-term goal is 100%. Information for this indicator was collected from Paull Goldsmith and Paul Handley. This provides a clear picture of where a campus should be in its current state of sustainability, and what sort of long-term targets should be set for campus sustainability. Detailed information about other indicators addressed during this initial effort can be found in appendix 1.
Recommendations for future sustainability assessments at UTM
It is recommended that UTM continues to perform sustainability assessments, ideally once every two years, to track the progress that the university is making towards becoming a sustainable institution. Areas where the university is progressing towards sustainability, and areas where work is still needed must be identified and addressed.
First, administrative support of the project should continue. When I first began to collect information, many people questioned the intent of the project. Confidentiality of the information and administrative support of the assessment were primary concerns of many people who were contacted on campus. If potential contacts had been notified of the project by administration and told that they may be contacted for information, then a very large problem could have been avoided.
Second, the same framework should be used for all future assessments so that useful comparisons can be made. However, if this framework is to be used again, record keeping will need to be improved, for ease of framework use. An assessment in which several indicators were not measured, or could not be measured, is less useful. For example, UTM lacks information on full-time equivalent staff and faculty; there is little useful information on campus water use; and amount of paper used by the campus is not tracked. The framework itself will also need to be refined, and definitions made clearer. The main weakness of the framework is the vague definitions for terms such as “healthy”, “degraded”, and “natural” ecosystems. These are all extremely subjective terms which need to be defined much more clearly in order to be useful. Also, the sheer size of the framework can make the project extremely intimidating. It is suggested that the framework be refined so that only the most important indicators, which many campuses will be able to measure, remain.
It is also recommended that UTM hire a part-time, paid student from September to May to maintain vital contacts, continue to collect information about indicators as it becomes available, and develop contacts with instructors to encourage collection of information related to indicators in classes. If left to a volunteer basis, projects such as these are easily forgotten as students are more focused on their academic performance. The appointment of a paid student from September through May would ensure that the project continues. We suggest the student work under the Environmental Affairs Officer.
Appendix 1: Indicators Completed for UTM
The indicators in this report are organized by sub-section of the framework. The table format follows the format used in the framework, with an additional column added for UTM’s score. Many of the indicators also incorporate the term CCM, which stands for “Campus Community Member”, and is defined as the sum total of full-time equivalent students, staff, and faculty from all departments on campus. For UTM’s assessment, number of full-time equivalent students was available; however staff and faculty numbers were not. Therefore, the number of staff and faculty used in this assessment is a headcount only (i.e., two half-time staff members counts as two).
Health and Well-Being – Recreation
No. / Indicator name / Measurement / Short-term benchmark / Long-term goal / UTM’s scoreHW-1 / Percent of total campus space dedicated to recreation. / Total recreational square meters (both indoor and outdoor) divided by total campus square meters, multiply by 100. / 2.67%
HW-2 / Money spent on recreation programs by the university per CCM each year. / Total annual dollars spent by the university on recreation programs, facilities, and services, divided by the total number of CCMs. / $230.00 per CCM
Discussion
Values for both of these indicators were obtained from Maureen Maclean, Administrative Assistant for Athletics. The measurement for total recreational square meters on campus includes football/soccer fields, swimming pool, beach volleyball courts, basketball courts, tennis courts, squash courts, the gymnasium, fitness rooms, weight rooms, athletics lockers, change rooms, athletics washrooms, and sauna rooms. The total square meters of these facilities was then divided by the total area of the UTM campus.
The value for HW-2 is from the total annual athletics budget, which is $1486000. This includes all overhead costs (staff costs, facility costs, etc). Most of the budget is provided by student fees; the one exception is funds which are used to run camps during the summer.
Construction is currently underway on a new Athletics and Wellness centre. This facility will be expanded and provide more recreational opportunities to the campus community.
Recommendations
Construction of the new Athletics facility will likely increase the level of participation in recreation programs. Efforts to encourage increased participation should be ongoing. Due to the construction of residence phase 8, UTM’s outdoor swimming pool will be destroyed; however there are plenty of outdoor play areas still available on campus.
UTM should consider spending more of the university’s money on recreation programs, as this would keep incidental fees to a minimum and make UTM more accessible to everyone.
Health and Well-being- Food
No. / Indicator Name / Measurement / Short-term benchmark / Long-term goal / UTM’s scoreHW-5 / Percent of on-campus food products that provide detailed nutritional information to the customer at the point of purchase. / Total food products served in all on-campus food service outlets that provide detailed nutritional information at the point of purchase, divided by total meals served, multiply by 100. / 30% / 100% / 80-85%
HW-4 / Percent of different diet types provided for by on-campus food services. / Total number of meal servings provided by all food services on campus each year that have all diet types provided for in the serving, divided by total number of meal servings provided by all food services each year; multiply by 100. / At least 30% / 100% / Not tracked
Discussion
Chartwells has recently taken over from Aramark as the main food service provider for UTM. Therefore, the above indicator is only an estimate, based on a campus of similar size to UTM. This number was provided by Sharon Lauzon from Chartwells. It should also be noted that the above indicator is for Chartwells food products only; food served at the Blind Duck Pub, which is run by ECSU, is not included, since ECSU has recently taken over management of the Pub from Aramark, so were unable to provide any information.
Recommendations
Since Chartwells has only taken over food service recently, it is difficult to indentify recommendations from numbers that are only rough estimates. For future assessment studies, tracking and record keeping systems should be put in place so that more accurate, representative numbers can be obtained.
It is important that food service customers on campus know what is in the food they are eating. Therefore, work should continue to ensure that detailed nutritional information is available at all food outlets on campus, for all products sold at that outlet.
For indicator HW-4, different diet types include regular, vegan, vegetarian, kosher, hindu, muslim, diabetic, gluten free, and low calorie, cholesterol and salt. Due to the diverse population on campus, it is important that different dietary choices are available. It is recommended that Chartwells begin tracking information for this indicator, so that availability of different diet types can be evaluated in the future.
Health and Well-being- Safety
No. / Indicator Name / Measurement / Short-term benchmark / Long-term goal / UTM’s scoreHW-7 / Number of accidents involving motor vehicles on campus per CCM each year. / Total number of accidents involving at least one motor vehicle (including accidents involving pedestrians, cyclists, etc) divided by total number of CCMs. / Zero / 0.00294 accidents per CCM.
HW-8 / Number of workplace accidents per CCM each year. / Total number of workplace accidents divided by total number of CCMs. / Zero / 0.00991 accidents per CCM.
HW-9 / Number of incidents of rape, sexual assault, racism, physical assault, homophobia, and other similar events per CCM each year. / Total number of reported incidents from this list divided by the total number of CCMs. / Zero / 0.00433 incidents per CCM.
Discussion
The source of these values is from the University of Toronto at Mississauga Campus Police Annual Report 2003. There were a total of 19 motor vehicle accidents on campus in 2003, which includes 15 collisions, and 4 collisions where one party failed to remain at the scene of the accident.
The value for indicator HW-8 was taken as number of injuries on campus. In 2003, there were a total of 64 injuries reported. Most of these were athletics related injuries. Number of injuries that occurred on the job is not tracked separately.
For indicator HW-9, there were a total of 28 incidents reported. This included 5 assaults, 1 assault causing bodily harm, 1 assault with a weapon, 0 sexual assaults, 9 reports of criminal harassment, 0 reports of threatening death, 2 reports of threatening safety, 6 harassment by email/phone, 0 hate crimes, 3 indecent acts, and 1 report of possession of a weapon. In total, in 2003, there was a 10.6% reduction in the number of criminal offences against persons reported as compared to 2002.
The main difficulty with these indicators is that many incidents likely go unreported. Therefore, the accuracy of these values may be called into question. Also, there are no set short-term benchmarks for this section, because of the difficulty of determining an “acceptable” number of these incidents.