This Wednesday, July 18th, UBC President Santa J. Ono will host nearly 50 representatives from across UBC and the lower mainland for the UBC President’s Roundtable: Building Resilient Partnerships for Climate Action.
The community-university Roundtable will convene senior leaders and climate researchers from UBC with regional business, government and non-profit leaders to explore barriers to – and new opportunities for – climate action in our region. It is the second in the UBC President’s Roundtable series, a new series that brings together experts and leaders from UBC and across the region to explore the pressing issues facing our communities.
Through this Roundtable, UBC intends to ensure that the University acts as an agent of change to address some of society's most pressing sustainability challenges. UBC’s new strategic plan, Shaping UBC's Next Century, commits all aspects of the University—its infrastructure, research, teaching and learning elements—to lead globally and locally in sustainability and wellbeing across our campuses and communities. Our commitment transforms the entire UBC campus into a living laboratory—a societal test-bed for sustainability in which staff, students, faculty members, researchers and partners test, study, teach, apply and share lessons learned, technologies created and policies developed.
UBC has set aggressive climate action targetsto reduce greenhouse gases by 67% by 2020, and 100% by 2050, compared to 2007 levels. We have been able to demonstrate how these deep reductions are achieved at the Bioenergy Research and Demonstration Facility and the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability. UBC will implement its new Green Building Action Plan to continue to advance high performance buildings that catalyze broader market transformation to address climate change.
The President’s Roundtable will also fulfil the next step in UBC’s commitment as a member of the University Climate Change Coalition (UC3) – a coalition of 18 North American universities committed to leading cross-sectoral solutions to climate change in their respective regions. At UC3, UBC re-committed to being a resilient sustainability partner, innovator, and convener in our region, and a leader by example across our continent. Roundtable outcomes will be shared with all other UC3 members.
Climate leadership is a defining characteristic of the Metro Vancouver region and the municipalities, utilities, institutions and industries that call this region home. The upcoming Roundtable will support existing relationships and foster new ones to accelerate progress towards climate action goals across Metro Vancouver and beyond.
For more information about partnering with UBC on research, teaching, or another sustainability initiative, contact Victoria Smith, Director of Regional and International Engagement, UBC Sustainability Initiative, at victoria.smith@ubc.ca.