Empowering students: Residence Sustainability Enhancement Fund

Andrew Quenneville, Associate Director, Student Residence and member of the SHCS CAP 2030 committee

It’s been a busy first year for the SHCS CAP 2030 Committee, as they worked to advance the goals in UBC’s ambitious and critical climate action plan (CAP 2030), prioritizing five key areas: buildings, transportation, food systems, waste and engagement.

While numerous projects focused on operations or infrastructure enhancements—such as retrofitting buildings with low-emission electric ventilation systems or adding zero-emission vehicles to our fleet—others were aimed at engaging and empowering students to take their own sustainability and climate action on campus.

Residence Sustainability Enhancement Fund

One of these unique efforts to engage and empower students was the first-ever Residence Sustainability Enhancement Fund (RSEF), which offered residents in Student Housing Vancouver the opportunity to apply for up to $10,000 in funding—to develop bold, innovative and creative grassroots projects that support sustainability and climate action in residence.

“If we want our students living in residence to be partners in our sustainability initiatives and to be highly engaged with that work, then it’s important we involve them throughout the entire process.” — Andrew Quenneville, Associate Director, Student Residence and member of the SHCS CAP 2030 committee

Suggested RSEF project areas

Students were encouraged to submit proposals within six project areas:

• Green spaces and urban gardening
• Technology and innovation

Application period and student response

With support from his team, Andrew Quenneville, Associate Director, Strategic Initiatives and Staff Development in Student Residence, and a member of the SHCS CAP 2030 committee, launched this fund in November 2024.

By the deadline of January 31, 2025, the fund received 40 applications from student residents, which far exceeded the committee’s expectations in its first year.

“I hope that the winning submissions will result in behavioural changes for students living in residence,” says Andrew, “by raising awareness about the importance of engaging in sustainable living—and lowering the barriers to do so.” says Andrew.

“Submitting to the RSEF was so meaningful to me, as I will be able to use my skills and knowledge to implement real change in the UBC community. I’m very excited to grow this project from paper to reality.” — Jordan, Fairview resident and 2025 RSEF recipient

Announcing the 2025 RSEF student recipients

Today, we are excited to share the two projects that the RSEF committee recently selected to receive funding.

Stephanie, Ritsumeikan-UBC House and 2025 RSEF recipient

Ritsumeikan Recycling Reorganization Project

Project themes: waste reduction and recycling, education and awareness, and behavioural change.

This project proposes to enhance and update the waste sorting system at Ritsumeikan-UBC House by adding clear, weatherproof labels to recycling and compost bins, hiring IBPOC youth artists to creatively paint the waste bin, and providing educational resources to residents to help provide them with more thorough education about waste sorting.

Recipient

Stephanie
First year undergraduate, Science
Ritsumeikan-UBC House

“Getting the chance to submit to the RSEF meant I had an opportunity to directly support UBC’s Climate Action Plan. Planning, education and preparation are all important steps in climate action, but getting students involved hands-on is what will allow for meaningful change in the UBC community.” — Stephanie, Ritsumeikan-UBC House resident and 2025 RSEF recipient

The selection process

With 40 applications, the selection committee of staff from the Student Residence and Building Services teams had their work cut out for them.

To decide which projects to award funding to, they evaluated proposals based on a variety of criteria, including the potential reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), long-term sustainability, measurability and alignment with campus sustainability and climate action goals.

Next steps

Now that the recipients have been notified and announced, Andrew and his team will begin working with the students to develop project plans and identify key milestones for the coming year.

Additionally, with such strong student engagement in the first year of the RSEF, the fund is expected to return for a second year, with applications opening in November 2025.

“Student-led initiatives give us the opportunity to hear new and innovative ideas, and students will feel more ownership over and connection to projects that they or their peers create.” — Ricky Biring, Associate Director, Facilities and Building Services and co-chair of the SHCS CAP 2030 committee.

Additional student-focused initiatives

The RSEF is just one of the ways that we’ve worked to educate, empower and inspire students to get involved, take action and live more sustainably in residence.

​Mindful Market: September 2024

In September 2024, over 200 students attended the now-annual Mindful Market to purchase items donated by the previous year’s residents, such as small kitchen appliances, dishes, hangers, pillows, clothing and footwear.

In addition to promoting and supporting the on-campus circular economy, a total of $3,300 was raised and donated in support of campus food security.

Did we go viral?

In summer 2024, Marketing and Communications published What I wish I didn’t bring to residence on TikTok and Instagram.

An interview-style video that asked students what they wished they didn’t bring to residence, it was viewed over 270,000 times, communicating our message to “bring only what you need” to incoming UBC students—and well beyond!

Sustainability Features in Residence

In summer 2024, Student Housing and Marketing and Communications transitioned a suite of print materials for students, about the sustainability features in their residences, to an enhanced and updated Sustainability Features web page—and the content is now shared with residents via email and social media shortly after the September and May move-ins.

This shift means we can easily share this valuable information with any student or website visitor, and it saves over 2,000 paper documents from being printed and recycled each year.

Place Vanier vs. Totem Park: Energy Conservation Challenge

This February, Student Housing launched the first-ever Energy Conservation Challenge, to see whether Place Vanier or Totem Park could reduce the most energy use between February 24 and March 17. Congratulations to our Totem Park residents who won the challenge with a 10% reduction in energy use.

Throughout the challenge, a series of emails to residents educated them on ways to reduce energy, such as washing clothes with cold water or lowering the temperature on their thermostat.

Waste Sorting Pilot Program: Marine Drive

To learn more about the barriers that keep residents in suite-style housing from consistently sorting waste and food scraps properly, SHCS Facilities and Building Services (FABS) introduced three waste sorting interventions at Marine Drive during a four-week waste sorting initiative:

• Option A: a waste sorting station on their floor.
• Option B: food scraps collected from their unit by SHCS staff.
• Option C: a combination of options A and B.

This valuable initiative will help SHCS staff understand how to make waste sorting in suite-style housing easier, more convenient and more effective.

Plus, two UBC researchers will be publishing a research paper about the pilot, which will help contribute to the global body of research on the challenges and solutions to waste sorting in similar communities.

Mindful Move Out: Spring 2025

This spring, we once again launched our long-standing Mindful Move Out campaign, which encourages students to plan, sort and donate items they may not need when they move out—to significantly reduce the number of items we send to the landfill.

​What to pack for residence: content overhaul

Looking ahead to the spring and fall move-ins, another big contribution to the waste produced by our residence communities is what students bring in the first place.

To help reduce what students bring when they move in, Student Residence and Marketing and Communications launched an overhauled What Should I Pack? web page to more clearly emphasize the key message to students to “bring only what you need” and better communicate to incoming residents what they need to bring, what they don’t need to bring and what they shouldn’t bring.

Electric rooftop ventilation unit at Marine Drive residence

Additional sustainability initiatives

Brock Commons South

Brock Commons South, completed in spring 2024, is the latest student residence built to LEED Gold standards. In addition to being highly efficient, Brock South adds 404 new beds for upper-year students on campus, helping cut down on transportation-related emissions by eliminating more students’ need to commute to campus.

Energy conservation and decarbonization projects

Throughout 2024, Debra Eng, our Ancillary Energy Manager, continued to make progress on major energy conservation and decarbonization projects in our older residences.

These projects will help significantly reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions in these residence buildings.

Energy conservation projects

In the following residences, we replaced fluorescent lighting with energy-efficient LED lighting, reducing energy use by over 320,000 kWh* annually, which is the amount of energy required to stream Netflix for over 4,000,000 hours.

• Ponderosa Commons (Cedar, Oak and Spruce)
• Brock Commons (Tallwood)
• Orchard Commons

*A kilowatt-hour (kWh) is the amount of energy consumed by a 1,000-watt or 1-kilowatt electrical appliance operating for one hour.

Upcoming project

This fall, we will be installing occupancy sensors in the Marine Drive commonsblock, which will automatically put the HVAC system into standby mode when the building is not occupied.

Decarbonization projects

Decarbonization is the process of reducing high-carbon energy sources or switching to low-carbon energy sources to significantly reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

In 2024, two decarbonization projects were completed at Marine Drive:

• Ventilation unit conversion: replaced gas-fired ventilation air units with electric heat pumps at buildings 4 and 6, saving 280 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually.
• Heat recovery: Optimized the building system to recover heat from the HVAC hydronic loop to heat domestic hot water—for sinks, showers and dishwashers—for residents, saving 55 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually.

In total, these projects reduced our greenhouse gas emissions by 335 metric tons annually, the same as removing roughly 73 cars from the road.

Upcoming project

In fall 2025, at Marine Drive (Building 5) and Acadia Park (Sopron House), we will be replacing gas-fired ventilation air units with models that use electric heat pump technology—further reducing our GHG emissions by 220 metric tons.

In early 2026, we will be decarbonizing the Ponderosa Commons hot water boilers by supplementing them with air source heat pumps and adding heat recovery, which will reduce our GHG emissions by another 175 metric tons.

Sage Campus Delivery: zero waste catering

Launched in February, Sage Campus Delivery takes up the mantle of drop delivery catering in Food Services, offering fresh and local meals for meetings and events.

Notably, Sage Campus Delivery is the campus’s only zero waste caterer, offering only reusable dishware and cutlery to help reduce its environmental impact. All catering materials, including dirty dishes, are picked up within a few hours after each event, a strategy that has resulted in success and value for customers—and not many lost dishes so far!

Learn more

Find out more about how we’re contributing to UBC’s climate action and sustainability goals and the SHCS CAP 2030 committee.

Plus, check out additional sustainability stories and news and updates from SHCS.