AASHE Campus Sustainability Hub

Since 2010, the creativity, skills and passion of close to 600 UBC graduate students in the Sustainability Scholars Program have made a positive impact on sustainability issues in the Vancouver region and throughout British Columbia. Their work on innovative paid applied research projects for organizations ranging from municipal governments to Indigenous Nations, to health and transportation authorities, businesses and NGOs, addresses an expansive range of sustainability issues.

The program is easy to describe—Sustainability Scholars are graduate students who work on applied sustainability research projects defined by off-campus community organizations. This simple value proposition—paid work experience for students, high quality applied research for organizations—develops the sustainability leaders of tomorrow and advances sustainability and climate resilience across the region.

Overall impact and breadth of impact Sustainability Scholars have produced research reports on many topics with demonstrable impact overall on sustainability in the region. With hundreds of completed projects, it is a challenge to summarize the full impact. By including numerous individual examples throughout this application, we aim to show the program’s breadth and overall impact .

The breadth and scope of Scholar’s projects has encompassed almost every aspect of sustainability in the region. Projects have laid the foundation for increasing the urban tree canopy in Vancouver’s inner city; identified solutions for electric vehicle fleets and charging facilities; influenced building codes to reduce embodied emissions in new construction; produced a GIS mapping overlay for green rainwater infrastructure assets at twenty-two development sites on private land; informed the restoration design of sludge lagoons to freshwater wetlands in a wastewater treatment plant; and explored the creation of a local, equitable food hub in a racialized neighbourhood, among many other examples.

The publicly accessible online project library enables those interested in doing similar research to read about and explore the breadth of project work that has taken place over the years. https://sustain.ubc.ca/teaching-applied-learning/sustainability-scholars-program/project-library

Impact is also demonstrated by Scholars’ societal involvement. Students have built on their Scholars’ projects by writing op-eds, sharing their stories by video and through webinars, and publishing peer-reviewed articles.

Examples include:

• An op-ed in the Vancouver Sun, "The fires were just the beginning, welcome to the age of climate displacement," that referenced recent work by a Scholar in light of the devastating wild fire that demolished the town of Lytton BC. https://vancouversun.com/opinion/george-benson-and-sarah-kamal-the-fires-were-just-the-beginning-welcome-to-the-age-of-climate-displacement
• A short film, “The Climate Emergency is Here,” highlights the way one Sustainability Scholar addressed climate anxiety in her project. The project aimed to identify methods of addressing, mitigating, and coping with climate grief at the population, community, and individual levels. The Scholar later produced and delivered a webinar inspiring a member of the Climate Action Secretariat (British Columbia Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy) to request permission to include the Scholars’ work in a package of K-12 resources for the BC Ministry of Education. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-UFBv_rGJQ Link to related webinar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cR9Eh-Jmkss&list=PLEWiJif_KOwvbK9XGM-NKzX4hokG9rJ4W&index=38

Published papers, based on Scholars’ projects include these examples:

• Pauer, Stefan U., Angelique Pilon, and Brad Badelt. "Strengthening city–university partnerships to advance sustainability solutions: a study of research collaborations between the University of British Columbia and City of Vancouver." International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education (2020).
• Teshnizi, Zahra. "Vancouver pre-1940 houses: a cache for old-growth forest wood." Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development (2019).
• Abbott, Neal T., and Alexander Y. Bigazzi. "Utilizing shared parking to mitigate imbalanced supply in a dense urban neighborhood: case study in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada." Transportation Research Record 2651.1 (2017): 92-100.

A case study analysis of reports resulting from the work of Sustainability Scholars is also underway.

The impact on student participants’ future employment is also significant. Many regional organizations hire their Scholars after graduation. Former Scholars return to the program as mentors due to their first-hand knowledge of its value. The program is also a notable model of Work Integrated Learning, which the Vancouver Economic Commission recently identified as a key experience for graduates entering the workforce in the era of the climate emergency.

Addressing racial equity and social justice In the past three years in particular, the Sustainability Scholars program has contributed to addressing racial and social justice issues in tangible ways. Two of BC’s largest cities have worked with Scholars to produce equity frameworks to mitigate the disproportionate climate impact on marginalized and vulnerable populations. One to support the City of Vancouver achieve its “6 Big Climate Moves,” the other lays the foundation for the City of New Westminster to create a climate equity framework to guide its climate action and establish climate equity indicators. Similarly, an energy poverty profile for the City of Abbotsford will inform the development of climate action plans and policies to reduce GHG emissions.

Scholars are also responsible for contributing to other developments on social and racial justice:

• changing Vancouver’s anti-racism policy (by laying the groundwork for an anti-Black racism strategy in Vancouver) https://sustain.ubc.ca/stories/ubc-sustainability-scholar-lays-groundwork-anti-black-racism-strategy-vancouver;
• assisting the Great Bear Initiative's Climate Action Network with learnings from other Indigenous peer network models; https://sustain.ubc.ca/about/resources/climate-action-peer-network-moving-forward-through-learning-others,
• determining how the built environment of rapid transit stations can impact gender inclusion and rapid transit facility design; and, https://sustain.ubc.ca/about/resources/gender-inclusion-and-rapid-transit-facility-design
• providing essential research on the domestic and international legal frameworks on the right to free, prior and informed consent in mining on Indigenous lands for a policy discussion paper distributed by the BC First Nations Mining and Energy Council. https://sustain.ubc.ca/about/resources/first-nations-energy-and-mining-council-mining-and-consent-discussion-paper

A revised MOU between UBC and one of the program’s core partners, BC Hydro, a Crown corporation that generates and delivers hydro-electric power to 95% of the population of BC, reflects the growing emphasis on racial and social justice as drivers of systemic change via the program. It states that “The Parties will explore ways to learn from each other about advancing Indigenous engagement and meaningful reconciliation, including engagement with Indigenous Peoples. The Parties will also explore specific opportunities in Indigenous employment and training, such as expanding the UBC Sustainability Scholars Program to include Indigenous partnerships and engage an increasing number of Indigenous scholars and Indigenous-focused projects each year.”

Stakeholder involvement Not only has the program involved students, faculty, and staff from every corner of UBC (including both the Vancouver and Okanagan campuses) it has significantly expanded UBC’s community partnerships with local and provincial governments, and corporations—all of whom are paying partners. Indeed, the Sustainability Scholars program was the impetus for UBC’s comprehensive 2010 MOU with the City of Vancouver, and is an integral part of UBC’s MOUs with the larger regional government, Metro Vancouver, and the province’s largest utility, BC Hydro.

Recent additional funding from UBC and Canadian charitable foundations has supported more than 50 students to work with new NGO partners, extending the program’s community impact to groups that provide vital public services yet lack the resources to hire interns.

Community support for the program is still growing, with new mentors and organizations added each year. Yet despite this growth, each year the number of graduate student applicants exceeds the number of positions available.

Finally, there is widespread endorsement of the program’s value. Within UBC, the Government Relations and Community Engagement office promotes Sustainability Scholars as a flagship community engagement program, and uses it as an example of how work with community partners leads to meaningful public impact. The UBC President is such a fan that he “adopted” the program for fundraising purposes. Project mentors are enthusiastic, as attested to by returning mentors, letters of appreciation, and employment of Scholars post-graduation. The City of Vancouver and other program partners regularly feature Scholars’ work in their newsletters and social media.

Innovation Innovation in the concept. The Sustainability Scholars program is innovative for its simplicity and the extreme value students and partners obtain from the experience. For partner organizations it’s cheap, fast, extremely high-quality applied research on an issue they need to address. For graduate students, it’s high quality paid work experience for the kinds of employers they dream about landing a full-time role with post-graduation.

Innovation in the work. The research the students produce is itself extremely innovative. Some examples:

• The project, “Developing a Community Solar Garden in the City of New Westminster," was so innovative that it won the 2019 Environmental Award from the Engineers and Geoscientists of BC. https://sustain.ubc.ca/about/resources/developing-community-solar-garden-city-new-westminster
• Research on the transportation challenges of autonomous vehicles was cutting edge at the time it was written in 2016. https://sustain.ubc.ca/about/resources/turning-transportation-challenges-and-opportunities-presented-city-vancouver
• Similarly, a project on drone technology for freight and passenger transportation resulted in the Scholar providing advice to the executive director of Canadian Air Mobility on advancing the zero-emissions air mobility ecosystem in Canada. https://sustain.ubc.ca/about/resources/rpas-technology-future-passenger-and-freight-transportation
• A recent project analyzed conversion of parking garages into affordable housing. https://sustain.ubc.ca/about/resources/feasibility-study-conversion-parking-garages-affordable-housing
• Another project “Mapping the GrIID: Making way for Vancouver's First Green Industrial Innovation District,” researched the unique landscape of forces to be considered in developing what would be Vancouver's first circular economy hub. https://sustain.ubc.ca/about/resources/mapping-griid-making-way-vancouvers-first-green-industrial-innovation-district

And in yet another example, a project for the Social Purpose Real Estate Collaborative in 2020, investigated challenges and opportunities in providing affordable, secure and suitable spaces for non-profits, social enterprises and artists through the lens of equity, inclusion and reconciliation. To our knowledge, this was the first time research of this kind had been undertaken and shared. The research reflects on how different forms of discrimination, racism and bias influence availability, rights, and use of land and property, and demonstrates how systems of oppression and injustice have been challenged in the Real Estate sector. https://www.socialpurposerealestate.net/content/equity-inclusion-and-reconciliation-real-estate-and-social-purpose-real-estate-sectors

Innovation in the funding model. The program’s funding model ensures long-term viability. The majority of funding—90% of it—comes from a wide network of partner organizations and charitable foundations, rather than core university or government funding. This makes the program more resilient to shifts in the funding landscape due to changes in government, or leadership within organizations.

Replicability Each university has different constraints, particularly if their sustainability office supports campus operations alone and does not include student or community engagement.

However, replicating this program would be relatively straightforward once seed funding and an administrative home is determined, as the bulk of the effort involves finding projects and matching them with students.

In addition, there is nothing unique about Vancouver’s regional networks of municipal and provincial/state governments, utility companies, transit organizations, engineering firms, NGOs, etc. These actors can be found in the regional networks of most, if not all, post-secondary education institutions.

The program began in 2010 when UBC traded the research services of 10 graduate students for raw wood waste materials from the City of Vancouver to power a Bioenergy Research Demonstration Facility at UBC—now the biggest source of greenhouse gas emission reductions on campus!

This arrangement formalized into the Greenest City Scholars program, which became an annual cohort of ten Scholars working on projects to support the City of Vancouver’s Greenest City Action plan. Building on this success, in 2014 UBC broadened the program into a format called the Sustainability Scholars program which places graduate students with partner organizations across the Lower Mainland of British Columbia (Canada).

Since then the Program has grown exponentially; 95 students and 55 organizations will participate throughout 2022.

Except for a legacy agreement with the City of Vancouver where UBC funds 50% of up to 20 student salaries, the majority of the Program budget is funded by external partner organizations.

This means that all student salaries are funded by the partner organization, while UBC provides in-kind funding for a full-time Program Manager, administrative support, and a small budget for meetings and events.

Recent charitable support has funded Scholars for NGOs who otherwise could not have afforded this cost.

Goals of the Sustainability Scholars Program Develop UBC graduate students as sustainability leaders by providing them with practical, paid, work-integrated-learning opportunities through which they gain relevant professional sustainability-related work experience and apply their academic skills. Collaborate with like-minded partner organizations to move the dial on climate action and sustainability challenges in our region. Support the University’s vision of “inspiring people, ideas and actions for a better world” by fostering respectful, reciprocal relationships between UBC and the larger community (including Indigenous and other equity seeking communities). Knowledge dissemination to share the work of the Scholars and our community partners to advance a civil and sustainable society.

The Sustainability Scholars Program Manager coordinates the program, engages with partners, and runs the process that matches graduate students with host organizations and their applied research needs.

The Program is open to graduate students at UBC’s Vancouver and Okanagan campuses, and provides opportunities across all academic disciplines.

Partner organizations develop and put forward project proposal(s), and work with the Program Manager to refine the project scope and coordinate recruitment of a Scholar. Exploratory and collaborative meetings with partners early in the process help identify areas in which Scholars can make the most valuable contributions.

UBC advertises projects, manages and shortlists applicants, and provides up to five candidates for each project for consideration and selection by the partner organization.

Project mentors at the partner organizations are involved in interviewing and selecting their preferred candidates to ensure appropriate skills. They then provide guidance and feedback to their Scholar over the course of the program and sign off on the final deliverables, one of which is saved in the public-facing online Scholars Project Library https://sustain.ubc.ca/teaching-applied-learning/ubc-sustainability-scholars-program#section--library

At the end of the program, the Scholars present their work at a well-attended “Research to Action” conference anchored by a keynote speaker with concurrent themed panel sessions to a public audience of program partners, and industry, community and university participants.

Overall Program Milestones 2010: Program starts (Greenest City Scholars Program), 10 projects/10 Scholars 2014: Pilot program expansion, (Sustainability Scholars Program), 12 projects/12 Scholars added BC Hydro, Musqueam First Nation, Fraser Health Authority, and others. 59 projects/59 Scholars to date 2016: Metro Vancouver joins the program 2017: Healthy City Scholars pilot (social sustainability projects for the City of Vancouver) 2020: UBC Climate Emergency Funding of $140,000 CAD made available to 36 small NGOs for a special fall cohort 2022: Additional Climate Emergency Funding supports Collective Impact pilot summer 2022 (20 student positions) and an additional 12 Climate Emergency projects in fall 2022. Philanthropic funding award supports 14 students focused on collaborative Fraser River Estuary research for three years. * 2022: Largest number of Sustainability Scholar positions ever with 95 in 2022 calendar year

Annual Program Timeline October 1: Call for projects out to potential partner organizations November 15: Project proposals due November/December: Projects finalised, payment agreements in place, projects converted to job description December/January: Recruitment (across both UBC campuses) February/March: Interviews, hiring, onboarding April: Program set up May – August: Program takes place August/September: Final reports uploaded to project library, invoicing, program evaluation survey * September: Wrap-up conference “Research to Action: Advancing Urban Sustainability”

The Sustainability Hub receives core UBC funding to cover the salary of the Program Manager, 50% of the cost of 20 City of Vancouver Scholars, plus a small budget to run the program. Other than that, the program runs on funding from external partners.

Breakdown: The annual cost of student salaries is approximately $690,000. Annual revenue of approximately $621,000 from participating partner organizations to cover the cost of student salaries. Cost share for 20 Greenest City Scholars (50% core funded, 50% partner funded) $69,000. Program budget for meetings (core-funded) $7,500.

Close to 600 students have participated in the program over the past 13 years. Mentors and students report a high level of satisfaction with the program through annual evaluation surveys.

In 2022, 83 Sustainability Scholars in the summer cohort are helping private, public, non-profit and First Nations partners advance a wide range of sustainability aspirations. Partners include the City of Vancouver, Metro Vancouver, BC Hydro, Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority, many local governments. The list encompasses a diverse set of NGOs including one of Canada’s largest environmental groups (WWF-Canada), BC’s most influential salmon organization (Pacific Salmon Foundation), and the umbrella group for the province’s volunteer naturalist clubs (BC Nature). Three Indigenous organizations are also participating this summer, illustrating the social and racial justice impact of the program.

Beyond career development, the Scholars are able to expand their professional network and share their work with the broader community through an online project library and presentations. After their project is complete, students remain engaged through an online network of alumni.

In addition to providing benefits to the partners, communities, and the Scholars themselves, the program adds to the University’s knowledge dissemination efforts, enables others to accelerate their own research undertakings and helps advance a civil and sustainable society.

The results of the work of Sustainability Scholars is evident from the record of how the program has supported the ongoing sustainability of efforts of our long-term partners. Examples of projects with the City of Vancouver, our first partner organization, are highlighted in many sections of this document. Three other long-term partners also show the results of our deep engagement:

• BC Hydro-funded projects have led to a more successful implementation of the BC Energy Step Code, part of the BC Building Code designed to achieve net-zero energy ready buildings by 2032, through completion of a detailed evaluation of industry knowledge around airtight building construction practices. See this story about how BC Hydro has also supported the work of Scholars on the Step Code for municipalities: https://medium.com/@energystepcode/students-help-smooth-the-path-to-bcs-net-zero-energy-ready-future-fb4052c68506. As the story notes, the Scholars program “works well for both parties: The communities gain fresh insights, and the students gain real-world experience exploring energy and emissions policy.” Other topics tackled for BC Hydro, among many projects over the past eight years, include energy labelling for multi-family buildings, and opportunities to embed relevant climate action and energy management curricula into Indigenous post-secondary education and training.

• The Vancouver Economic Commission (VEC) has hosted 10 Scholars and has consistently brought immense value to VEC across all of its operations and advanced numerous core objectives and outcomes, such as:

  • Early Scholar work in 2013 led to the development of the False Creek Flats Economic Development Strategy, an economic plan for one of Vancouver's most important industrial neighbourhoods;
  • Commercialization and innovation research by Scholars has informed the development and expansion of one of VEC's flagship programs, Project Greenlight, which helps cleantech entrepreneurs demonstrate workable products to major institutional buyers in the region;
  • Scholar research on the Just Transition has directly informed VEC's most recent climate action plan, the Zero Emissions Economic Transition Plan (ZEETAP), which includes the implementation directly out of a Scholar's research to develop a regional Just Transition Council;
  • 2019 research on metrics and indicators related to the circular economy of food work are now informing VEC's early work to develop a Circular Economy Strategy for the City of Vancouver.

As of 2022, VEC has hired 3 of their former scholars and one other former scholar who worked with a partner agency into full-time positions.

• Similarly the regional transportation authority, Translink, has expanded its New Mobility Lab with several Scholars’ projects, including future-proofing transportation mobility hubs, analysis of transit agency intergovernmental agreements for major transportation investments, fare capping, drone technology, blockchain for data sharing, bike parking operational frameworks, impacts of shared, autonomous and electric vehicles, on-demand models and shared-use transportation services data, carsharing services, and climate change adaptation planning for transit.

Jump In! Our first piece of advice is to jump in and start the program. From the first year of operation in 2010 the program has grown far beyond the City of Vancouver. It now has numerous partners throughout the region and the province. The benefits are enormous, as this summary of the program demonstrates.

Other universities can use our example to demonstrate the value of this approach to work-integrated learning. The Sustainability Scholars model is particularly useful for city-university and corporate-university partnerships as both cities and corporations can fund relatively inexpensive summer internships for graduate students.

Our experience is that it has been valuable to enshrine the Scholars program into broader memoranda of understanding with significant partners. We have MOUs with the City of Vancouver, the Metro Vancouver regional government, and the province’s largest utility, BC Hydro. MOUs between the University and key local governments and utilities that specifically endorse action on sustainability through work-integrated learning opportunities such as the Sustainability Scholars Program ensure cooperation and follow through between both parties and long-term commitment to the Program.

Secure Funding Commitments Funding of the program will be an issue. Core funding and ongoing University support are essential to ensuring a long-running program.

The investment of core university funds for program management as well as for smaller organizations that don’t have the ability to pay adds immensely to the value of the program. Recently, UBC's Community Engagement office underscored how important the most recent two years of grants were to participating NGOs and have urged the administration to continue funding this program through the central budget process so NGOs and others, such as Indigenous organisations, are able to participate.

Where we have encountered some challenges is in trying to increase the Greenest City Scholars’ salaries to keep them competitive and in alignment with similar positions (and with the City's living wage policy) while working with a fixed annual budget from the University.

Attracting additional funding for the program through donors and outreach to foundations and corporations is also time consuming, though it can add considerable value and enhance the program.

Identify Value for Partner Organization Partner organizations value the program for the high quality and enthusiasm of the students that participate, but also because UBC manages the recruitment process and hires the students directly as UBC student employees. This offering has been greatly valued by small organizations that don’t have a payroll process and larger organizations that have FTE reporting requirements or union obligations.

The tight time frame of 15 weeks is valued by partner organizations. They can obtain an answer to a sustainability question relatively quickly, moreover, mentoring a Scholar over this period is not too disruptive. While the principal internship period runs from early May to mid-August each year, the program offers some flexibility to accommodate partner needs, and smaller fall cohorts have taken place on occasion.

Conducting evaluations with both the scholars and the mentors at the conclusion of the internships has been essential in maintaining partner and student satisfaction and overall program quality. As the program expands to include more partners, project topics and a greater breadth of students from the UBC community, coordination with other existing programs and offices on campus that offer sustainability-related curricular and co-curricular learning experiences for students is essential.

Addressing Racial Justice while Respecting Human Rights Codes Demand for students to bring lived experience of racialization and Indigenous knowledge practices to the projects has increased, however it is hard to specifically recruit for them following human rights regulations in addition to finding those with appropriate skills and backgrounds for the various projects. Some mentors and partner organizations specifically request to hire an Indigenous or BPOC student yet our recruitment practices prohibit asking for applicants to identify based on personal characteristics. We are aligning our practices and goals with recently endorsed actions following the University’s Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence Task Force report and the Indigenous Strategic Plan (2020). While we are still learning how to do this, having a strong peer network across the University has made this task easier for the Program Manager.

Importance of a Dedicated, Experienced Program Manager Management of the program requires a high level of professionalism to build relationships with partners over time. A program manager with experience managing complex budgets, arranging contracts and administering financial arrangements with partners will ease the operation of the program.

The Program Manager is intensely busy at certain times of the year and less busy at other times of the year. While the less busy times are used for evaluation and program planning the cyclical nature of running the program makes it challenging to incorporate other ongoing (but not cyclical) duties.

Having a dedicated person to stick-handle the internal call for projects within each of the major partner organizations is key to accessing internal mechanisms to communicate the call for project proposals. It also helps balance out the Program Manager’s workload as dealing with a few organizations that coordinate the development of multiple projects internally is much more manageable than dealing with many individual organizations.

Efficient Program Administration Having a central home for the program that is not affiliated with a specific faculty or discipline enables broader reach when seeking student applicants and encourages a wider range of project topics. Coordination and networking with other faculties and departments across a large university like UBC is important and helps ensure that students from a wide range of programs are aware of the internship opportunities.

We are currently investigating the use of customized software to streamline the program. The benefits of an online system would be considerable, though finding the capital costs to make this change might be a challenge.

Conclusion Overall, this flagship sustainability program is an innovative, impactful, inclusive, far-reaching program that is prized by students, partner organizations and the University alike.

• Karen Taylor - Program Manager | University of British Columbia