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Rita Fromholt and Teresa Waddell,
Sustainability Coordinators
Free Car Share memberships
Car sharing is a convenient and affordable alternative to owning your own car. You share cars with other members and only pay (by the hour and distance) when you use a car. The Victoria Car Share Co-op (VCSC) has four vehicles on campus available 24/7 for personal and business use. UVic is pleased to offer a complimentary membership in the VCSC to full-time continuing faculty and staff who work on campus and do not have a parking permit. There are also some complimentary memberships for residents at the Family Student Housing Complex. Details »
“Lug-A-Mug” campaign
The UVic community disposes of approximately 3,000 paper coffee cups daily, or close to 1.1 million per year. We can all work to get that number down. Use your own mug. The UVic Bookstore and various cafés on campus offer a great selection of mugs, and you will enjoy a discount when you buy coffee at most cafés on campus. If you must use a disposable cup, compost it in one of the designated compost stations around campus. See the location map on our website. The plastic lids can go into any of the bottles, cans and plastics recycling bins. Watch for more info on the “Lug-A-Mug” campaign in the months to come.
Manage what you measure
Under new provincial legislation, UVic is required to be carbon neutral by 2010, which means we need to measure and report on our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. To make sure everyone is measuring the same things the same way, the province has developed a software tool called SMARTTool—a GHG inventory framework which defines the scope to include emissions from buildings, fleet, paper use and fugitive emissions. A campus-wide GHG reporting team has been working hard over the last few months to get a handle on the data required. Overall we’re in good shape and we expect to have a completed 2009 UVic GHG inventory fairly early in the new year.
100% post-consumer waste paper purchasing policy
In January 2008, UVic became the first university in BC to implement a policy mandating that all bond paper (used in photocopiers and printers) be 100 per cent post- consumer waste. Considering that UVic consumes 72 million sheets of paper annually, this policy saves a lot of trees and lowers our carbon footprint and has not resulted in any significant increases in cost. More about UVic’s sustainable purchasing policies and practices.
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