Measuring sustainability in universities : successes, challenges, and guidance in conducting an Ecological Footprint Assessment of the UBC campus

Abstract

The following report explores the rationale, methodologies and assumptions to conduct an Ecological Footprint Analysis (EFA) of the UBC Point Grey campus which will aid future Land, Food, and Community III (LFC III) colleagues to perform an actual EFA at UBC. Our group explored the idea of performing an EFA of the UBC food system, but instead chose to focus on the entire UBC campus in the hopes that our work would help later groups identify and ameliorate the areas of largest contribution to UBC’s ecological footprint (EF). We saw that across the world, the universities that chose to conduct EFAs also focused on the entire campus and that the food system was a relatively small contributor to a campus’ EFA. We recommend that Rees and Wackernagel’s Consumption Land Use Matrix methodology be used to perform the EFA using the data collected from a variety of sources across campus. It is our belief that an EFA can become an important educational tool and a cornerstone of creating future sustainability programs and policies at UBC. INTRODUCTION 3 UBC FOOD SYSTEM PROJECT (UBCFSP) 3 2008 UBCFSP SCENARIO 7 PROJECT 3 GROUP PARADIGM 4 BACKGROUND 4 ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT 4 Usefulness & Limitations 5 Consumption – Fair Earth Share 5 INDICATORS 6 Measurements of Sustainability 6 GENERAL LITERATURE REVIEW 7 UBC INITIATIVES 10 PERSONAL INTERVIEWS 12 William Rees 12 Jill Dalton 12 EFA: UBC FOOD SYSTEM VERSUS WHOLE OF UBC 13 METHODOLOGY 15 HOW TO PERFORM AN ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT ANALYSIS 15 Land use matrix 15 Compound Based Analysis 16 Component Based Analysis 17 Input-Output Analysis 17 Land Disturbance Model 18 UBC Campus 18 BOUNDARIES 20 Figure 1. Proposed boundary for UBC EFA 20 DATA GATHERED FROM COURSE OF STUDY 20 AMS and UBC Food Services 20 Transportation 21 UBC Plant Operations 22 UBC Bookstore 22 DISCUSSION 22 CHALLENGES AND LIMITATIONS 23 Physical Size of the UBC Point Grey Campus 23 Data Collection and Calculation 23 Human Resources and Time Limitation 24 ASSUMPTIONS AND ACCURACY OF EFA 24 SOLUTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 24 CONCLUSION 25 APPENDICES 26 TABLE 1: FOOTPRINT MULTIPLIER (M2 LAND USED PER KG OF FOOD) FOR EACH FOOD CATEGORY AND LAND TYPE 26 TABLE 2: GATHERED DATA FOR UBC EFA 27 TABLE 3: UNTRACEABLE DATA: REASONS AND ASSUMPTIONS 28 REFERENCES 29 CONSENT FORMS 31