Since coming to Red River College, Daniel has made a significant positive impact on the culture of sustainability at the College and is an ambassador for showcasing the College to the wider community. In 2017, not long after attending a New Employee Orientation session where Daniel learned about the Sustainability Department, he visited our office and asked whether we would be interested in participating in the city-wide Bike Week event. Bike Week is a week-long celebration that encourages cycling as a way to get to work, school and more. One way community organizations can participate in Bike Week is to host a Pit Stop. Located along main cycling commuter routes, Pit Stops greet cyclists passing by with encouragement, food, prizes, bike tune-ups and more.

Because of Daniel’s gentle encouragement, the College held our first-ever Bike to Work Day Pit Stop in 2017 at the north end of the Omand’s Creek footbridge. This turned out to be a prime location as our team of College volunteers greeted approximately 115 cyclists, including Mayor Brian Bowman. Over the next two years, our Pit Stop greeted hundreds of more cyclists.

Since meeting Daniel in 2017, he’s hosted six events with our office to remove barriers and instill confidence in students, staff and faculty in promoting cycling as a viable commute mode. In 2017, he hosted a “Bike Repair Workshop” demonstrating how to use the College’s newly installed air and repair stations. In 2018, he co-hosted a “Cyclist Meet-up” where experienced cyclists shared tips and answered questions with novice cyclists. That year, he also hosted an “Ask the Expert” drop-in session to answer any cycling-related questions. This year, he hosted a “Bike Repair 101” workshop, a workshop on the “A-B-C’s of Cycling” and most recently a “Winter Cycling 101” event where he made a video demonstrating some aspects of winter cycling and answered questions about winter cycling. In addition to all of this, Daniel has become our “resident cycling expert” and is always ready and willing to support cycling at RRC any way he can.

Daniel’s work at the College in Civil Engineering Technology and the Building Envelope Technology Access Centre (BETAC) is directly related to advancing sustainability in the building sector. While his professional work is hugely important to sustainability, he’s awarded this year’s Sustainability Leadership Award because of what he does outside of his day job. It’s a gift to find a volunteer like Daniel who not only comes up with innovative and engaging ideas, but rolls up his sleeves to help see the ideas to fruition.

As an avid cyclist himself, Daniel leads by example by participating in the Commuter Challenge every year, signing up as a cycling mentor on GoManitoba in order to be matched up with those interested in cycling to campus and riding with them, and is one of the few “winter warriors” at NDC who cycles to work year-round. But his approachability and dedication to making cycling accessible is what makes him a leader. When he is hosting events his quiet leadership makes him approachable and his honesty and genuine care for people make him trustworthy. Anyone who has a conversation with Daniel leaves with a little more knowledge and a little more confidence about cycling.

While cycling is Daniel’s key area of interest, he also shows leadership by supporting sustainability in general at the College. Daniel attends and participates in many sustainability events at RRC including Earth Hour, the annual State of Sustainability, the climate strike and more. Daniel is always willing to pitch in and support any sustainability initiative and thanks to his leadership, he has made cycling to RRC accessible for many people.

Congrats Daniel on this well-deserved award!

Congratulations to Brady Barron for receiving this year’s BRAVO Award for Sustainability Leadership. This award is a recognition of his dedication, innovation and commitment to sustainability here at RRC.

Brady has been a valued part of the College community for nearly 10 years, first as a graduate of the Greenspace Management Program (2012) and then as a Groundskeeper at the Notre Dame Campus. Brady’s up at the crack of dawn tending to the College’s grounds and parking lots in rain, sleet and snow. Throughout his work, Brady maintains a keen eye for sustainability, often going above and beyond.

Brady plays a vital role in the College’s pre-consumer compost program. Since 2002, fruit and vegetable food scraps from the cafeteria kitchens and coffee grounds from our NDC Tim Hortons locations are collected daily and transported by the Grounds crew to compost piles located at the back of the campus. This program has kept an average of 34 tonnes of food waste from the landfill every year, diverting a record 48 tonnes in 2017. In addition, approximately 2 tonnes of yard waste is collected annually from the College grounds and added to the compost pile, ensuring the proper balance of carbon to nitrogen. In addition to that, Brady monitors the temperature, moisture and density of the pile to make sure conditions are just right to create a safe, nutrient-rich compost. Mixing the pile every 3 weeks until done, he then proceeds to screen the material and finally using it for landscaping and in flower beds throughout campus.

Composting is an important part of a sustainable campus, as it reduces the amount of organic waste going to the landfill turning it into a rich, nutrient-dense, valuable product that we use here on our grounds and gardens in landscaping. By composting, we are not only reducing our costs in waste hauling and turning our waste into a usable product, but we are also showing our commitment to sustainability by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reducing hazardous leachate production at the City landfill. Through Brady’s dedication, RRC operates a safe, healthy and successful pre-consumer compost program, with hopes of expansion in the future.

Congratulations Brady on this well deserved award. The College is lucky to have you!

Environmental Engineering Technology Students performed waste audits to test the effectiveness of the initial redesign

“We are excited to recognize Red River College for their high-impact sustainability projects and pioneering research,” said AASHE Executive Director Meghan Fay Zahniser. “The innovation and leadership demonstrated by these finalists is inspirational.”

The College launched Pitch In, our comprehensive hallway waste and recycling program, in 2011. The concept behind “Pitch In” is two-pronged: it shows students and staff where to “pitch” their waste and recyclables and also reminds us that the program can only be successful if we all “pitch in” and do our part.

New Pitch In Sign Design

In an ongoing effort to improve this program, and to make signage more accessible to our users, we decided to redesign the Pitch In signs last year. In keeping in line with the brand, invited our College community to “pitch in” on every step of the redesign process to make truly College-specific signs.

The new Pitch In signs will be launched at NDC and Roblin Centre later this fall. They are the result of direct input from approximately 150 stakeholders as well as data from two student-led waste audits which sorted through approximately 95kg (209lbs) of waste. The most notable difference is the shift from a text-based sign to an image-based one, which includes photos of actual items found on campus to make sorting easier.

“Garbage photo shoot” – photos of items found on campus were used in the new Pitch In signs.

This approach, which not only engaged stakeholders across the College but also includes photos of actual College-specific items is a unique approach to recycling signage. We even went so far as to have a “garbage photo shoot” with Marketing of items which were collected on campus! Read more about the project here.

AASHE (the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education) empowers higher education administrators, faculty, staff and students to be effective change agents and drivers of sustainability innovation. AASHE enables members to translate information into action by offering essential resources and professional development to a diverse, engaged community of sustainability leaders. Their prestigious annual awards recognize sustainability achievements, research advancements and student leadership. By raising the visibility of high-impact sustainability projects and pioneering research, the awards program helps to disseminate innovations and inspire continued progress toward sustainability.

Winners will be announced during the opening ceremony at the AASHE Conference & Expo in San Antonio, Texas this Sunday. Finalists’ entries were judged on overall impact, innovation, stakeholder involvement, clarity and other criteria specific to each category.

Wish us luck!

A big congratulations goes out to Nora Sobel and Bradley West from the Diversity and Intercultural Services department who accepted the inaugural Sustainability Leadership Award at Red River College’s RED Forum last week. They received this award for developing an online course to raise awareness about gender and sexual diversity issues among Red River College students, staff and faculty.

This award was created to shine a spotlight on the great sustainability work being done by faculty and staff throughout the College. Being recognized as one of Canada’s Greenest Employers for 7 consecutive years doesn’t happen without dedication, innovation and commitment from our entire College community. The Sustainability Leadership Award is one way we’re recognizing staff and faculty who are putting sustainability at the forefront of their work.

“The course allows the College community to access information to support their learning journey, 24/7. This supports access and flexibility in how students interact with the content. Common elements of social sustainability”, Bradley said. One of the first to be developed in Canada, the course is offered in six 50-minute modules. Each module can stand alone, or the entire series can be offered together as a comprehensive learning experience. The course covers topics like Terminology; Cultural Considerations; Manifestations of Homophobia, Biphobia, Transphobia and Heterosexism; Strategies for Inclusiveness; History of Pride and LGBTT* Rights; and College, Local and National Resources. “A strong collaborative approach throughout the development and implementation of this course is really one of the highlights of this initiative. RRC Teaching Learning Technology Centre (TLTC) supported our work through regular consultations with instructional designers and LEARN specialists, as well as with the filming, editing and closed captioning of video segments led by the eTV Studio. And now we are working with various academic programs -such as the Nursing program and the Allied Health Sciences programs- to employ this course to support student learning outcomes”, Nora said.

In addition to educating the College community about an important topic, the recipients of this year’s Sustainability Leadership Award serves a secondary purpose by raising our collective awareness of what it means to be a sustainable campus. All-too-often, conversations around campus sustainability focus on recycling and energy efficient buildings. But Red River College’s sustainability lens encompasses the three pillars of sustainability – social, economic and environmental. The Gender and Sexual Diversity course promotes the pillar of social sustainability. Social sustainability is about people – individuals and the community. While no universally accepted definition exists, it is generally agreed that socially sustainable communities are characterized by equity, diversity, inter-connectedness and good quality of life. These are values we espouse for our students, staff, faculty and our broader community.

The Sustainability Leadership Award recognizes and celebrates the outstanding contributions and cooperative efforts of employees who advance environmental, social and/or economic sustainability in a meaningful and enduring way at Red River College.

Source: http://bit.ly/1KKSzpA

Congratulations to all RRC staff who helped us take GOLD in last months Commuter Challenge!

Not only did Manitoba and Winnipeg lead Canada in active commuting, but RRC had the highest percentage of participation in our organizational category. This is the first year RRC has received GOLD; we maintained a strong silver in 2013 and 2014.

102 staff members were active over the one week challenge. We (RRC) traveled 10,826 km, saved 775 L of fuel and avoided over 1506 kg of CO2! That’s the equivalent of running household electricity for 42 days. Check out “How much C02 is that?” for more interesting facts!

Carpooling was the mode of choice for RRC staff this year which represented 45%. Transit takers represented 23%, cyclists 22%, telecommuters 6% and scooters and walkers 4%.

It was also exciting to note that bike ridership increased 10% from last year. We hoped it was partly the result of offering Biking 101, a seminar(s) partnership between the Sustainability Office and Athletics and Recreation Services last April. If you missed the sessions, Dave Elmore taught us a lot about the anatomy of the bike, bike ridership, how to purchase a bike and we even went out and practiced some of our new skills. Click on this link to review the course slides.

Also a big “SHOUT OUT” to all of our regional campus commuters who registered and logged in under the RRC banner this year!

Thank you to The Commuter Challenge Provincial Coordinator and the Green Action Centre who kept us all organized during this national event!

Recently, Red River College’s entire recycling team (15 team members and 6 Coordinators) were presented with RRC’s BRAVO Hidden Hero Award.

We are proud to celebrate the success of our Recycling Team and the recycling program at the College. Congratulations to the Team and the other exceptional recipients.

Read More…

The Hidden Hero Award recognizes individual employees and teams who put Red River College core values into action to quietly contribute to success for the whole organization.

Next year be sure to nominate staff for a BRAVO award whom you see making a difference by demonstrating the College values of learning, respect, inclusiveness, integrity, healthy environment, and community contribution.

We are included amongst only a hand full of elite organizations across Canada who have won this prestigious award five years in a row!  We receive these accolades not only because of the hard work and commitment of the Sustainability Office but through support from the Recycling Team, active and engaged staff and students and our Leadership Community and Executive Team who champion this work.

Read the full story.