How Royal Roads University Can Improve Its Sustainability To Increase STARS Rating

Royal Roads University currently has a gold rating in sustainability by the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS) with a score of 70.03 (Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), 2018). To achieve platinum, the university must gain an additional 15.0 points. The following sections will outline how the university can improve its sustainability to reach platinum status.

The greater Victoria area is ideal for growing plants with its temperate climate, extended growing season and amount of precipitation. Therefore, Royal Roads University is an ideal spot for an organic garden. The campus already has an extensive grounds crew, irrigation system, and equipment. All the organic garden material from the National Historic site is already composted onsite (Royal Roads University, 2015). This compost can be used for the soil in the organic gardens. The organic gardens can be an educational tool for students, staff, and the community alike. The organic gardens can have plots designated for students and staff, some for the Habitat Café, the local First Nations, and for the public. This can increase educational outreach by hosting gardening workshops, teaching the Nature kindergarten program about gardening, and having the local First Nation communities teach how they traditionally used the land to grow food and medicines. The organic gardens have the potential to generate a profit by charging a service fee for each lot and for workshops. The university organic plots can also provide food for the Habitat Café and any surplus can be donated to a local food bank. The addition of an organic garden can add 0.25 points, while a student enterprise in the form of a community garden can add another 0.25 points followed by an additional 0.25 points if surplus or leftover food from the Habitat Café is donated for a total of 0.75 points.

Another area Royal Roads University can gain more points for the STARS is community service participation and community service hours. During my two years in community college I volunteered for many organizations throughout my program. In fact, the community college had an entire day each year dedicated to community service. This occurred during orientation week where all the students from all programs volunteered in the community with their instructors. Volunteer day is a great way for students to immerse themselves into the community and create networking opportunities. AASHE (2018) states institutions can exclude non-credit, continuing education, and/or part-time students from this credit from both the community service participation and community service hours categories. In addition, AASHE (2018) explains that an average of 20 hours per year of community service can give an institution 6.0 points for the community service hours category. This makes this category even more achievable given that the university has a little under a thousand are full-time students. These hours can be designated during orientation and/or can be implemented into the curriculum itself. If Royal Roads University could encompass some volunteer work into their programs this could potentially add 12.0 points to the STARS rating.

Transportation is another area where Royal Roads University can improve their sustainability rating. First off, the university can have a carpool discount. Staff can partner up with each and so can students. This way one pass can be purchased for the group of people that are carpooling. Names and or student numbers can be recorded for each pass so people cannot buy more than one and just drive themselves. Secondly, they can implement a biking plan. It seems this one is occurring already with the number of trails, bike racks, and tuning station. I would recommend more bike racks at the top of the hill, putting shelters over the racks that don’t have them, partnering with local bike shops for student discounts and having biking accessories purchasable at the recreation center or school store such as locks, bike covers, etc. Overall, another 1.0 points can be added if these items are pursued further.

As discussed in class, paper consumption is an area that the university can improve on. This in turn can reduce the amount of energy, fuel, water, and greenhouse gas emissions. Upon observation, there are many rooms that have the big sheets of paper on easels. This paper can be replaced by white boards instead. According to Wilkin and Melfi (2018), the staff currently has a display on their screen that tells them how much the printing is costing the university. Personally, I do not think this is enough. A program that worked well at my past institution was PaperCut NG where each person was allotted print credits for each semester. When those print credits were used up, the person then had to pay for printing. Instead of just displaying the printing cost, this program also showed the number of print jobs, pages, and environmental impact including percent of trees consumed, kilogram of carbon dioxide produced, and the energy equivalent to the number of hours of running a 60W light bulb. It made you think twice about printing considering you could see the direct impact you were having on the environment. This may be an option for the staff since students are already being charged for printing. Also, the university should have 100 percent recycled paper available for campus printers instead of just for special purposes as stated by Royal Roads University (2015). In implementing these ideas, hopefully some points can be given for reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

Another area Royal Roads University can improve is its clean and renewable energy. On average Colwood, BC receives 996.4 mm of rainfall per year. This rainwater can be captured and used to harness electricity. Coxworth (2015) explains that Portland is generating electricity from water moving through the municipality’s pipes via turbines hooked to generators outside the pipes. The campus already has a stormwater and rain water collection and distribution system. As result, the current systems could be retrofitted to include the turbines and generator to produce electricity.

There are several barriers that impede upon Royal Roads University achieving its platinum designation in sustainability. For one, there is a large turnover rate for students and the majority are online. This makes it hard to develop student initiatives because not many programs are on campus and when they are, it is only for a short period of time. Similarly, there are very few full-time faculty members so it difficult to get them involved as well. The layout of the campus and being a Historical Landmark also proves to be difficult. Another big issue is funding. The university has a tight budget especially since the BC government does not allow universities to loan money. As a result, most of the money comes from the SAFE fund but even this is limited.

In conclusion, these are some ways Royal Roads University can improve their sustainability practices to increase their STARS rating to platinum. To achieve this there are many barriers they must overcome; the main one being limited funding. Perhaps a sustainability fee could be implemented into tuition and for any event that the university hosts such as weddings, movies etc. In addition, hopefully we will see more funding and research into sustainability issues with the new environmental laboratory. As for student and staff involvement, perhaps they can host small events more frequently to have more of presence on campus and possibly a monthly newsletter. Personally, I was unaware we had a sustainability and my studies are in this field.