As climate concerns intensify, the University’s launching two campus-wide efforts to make sustainability more than a buzzword.
Students can participate in both Sustainability Month and Circular Economy Month at the University this October. Sustainability Month, celebrated on campuses across the world, helps educate students on sustainable living practices, which is promoted by the Circular Innovation Council, and is all about encouraging greater resource efficiency and reuse.
While the two campaigns on campus are separate—with Sustainability Month run by the AMS, whereas Circular Economy Month is run by the University—they share the same goal of reducing waste and promoting sustainable practices at Queen’s.
In an interview with The Journal, AMS Commissioner of Environmental Sustainability (CES), Brooke Schmidt, explained that while Sustainability Month is about resisting climate change and promoting conservation efforts, it also encompasses more holistic forms of sustainability.
“[CES] is shifting towards a view of having sustainability focused not just on environmental sustainability, but social sustainability and economic sustainability,” she said. “We’ve been growing vegetables all summer in our community garden plot, and we’ve been donating them to the food bank. That’s economic sustainability.”
While, in previous years, Sustainability Month has involved only a week of AMS-programming, this year the Commission is allocating a bulk of its $94,100 programs budget to ensure that events span throughout October.
These activities include an eco-trivia night, an Indigenous nature walk talk, a resource fair teaching clubs to plan sustainable events, and a citizen science workshop. At the time of the interview, CES had already hosted their Eco-Trivia Night, in collaboration with Queen’s Pub on Oct. 2. “We had a packed room. It went really well,” Schmidt said.
The large turnout of the trivia event was a promising first step in accomplishing Schmidt’s primary goal for this Sustainability Month, which is to see new faces engaging with CES.
“Our goal with this is to engage as many students as possible,” Schmidt said. “What success looks like for us is having students going to events that previously didn’t engage with our commission […] so that they can also learn more about sustainability as a whole, learn what resources are available to them, and just think more consciously about the natural world around them.”
The University has similar hopes to increase on-campus engagement with sustainable practices through its hosting of Circular Economy Month this October.
In an interview with The Journal, Nathan Splinter, the University’s assistant director of energy and sustainability, explained that Circular Economy Month is about reducing waste by promoting recycling and reusing resources.
“Circular Economy Month is intended to bring awareness and educate people on how they can live differently, buy differently, procure differently, and use resources that are more circular in nature,” Splinter said.
Queen’s doesn’t run any special programming or events for Circular Economy Month, instead taking it as an opportunity to spread awareness on sustainable programming already existing at the University, using the Queen’s Facilities social media account.
Tags
Circular Economy Month, Circular Innovation Council, Commissioner of Environmental Sustainability, Sustainability Month
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s) in Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca.