Victor Temprano / McGill Tribune

On Feb. 16, McGill’s Office of Sustainability held the third of four Sustainability XChange sessions, discussing the McGill community’s impact on climate change and ways to reduce its overall carbon emissions.

Jerome Conraud, an Energy Manager at McGill, opened the session with a presentation on McGill University’s level of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for the year 2010.

Currently, definitions of the scope of emissions are not finalized, and many categories of emissions are loosely defined, leaving room for interpretation. Conraud emphasized that his office is examining the process.

Conraud stressed that McGill’s greatest burdens on the community-at-large are “scope one” emissions  which include emissions from heating, ventillation and air-conditioning systems (HVAC), refrigerants, McGill-owned vehicles, and livestock. These emissions cause over three fourths of McGill’s total emissions making them the most environmentally damaging.

“If [emissions are] “scope one,” then we are directly responsible, and we should report on that,” Conraud said. “The goal is to show that we are a good part of the community.”

Emmanuelle Lapointe, a visiting faculty member with McGill’s faculty of engineering’s school of architecture, explained that McGill requires distributors of construction materials to make information about their impact available to McGill via the Internet. This measure increases accountability when planning campus-wide renovations or construction projects.

“All distributors of construction materials who provide to McGill … can go on that website and input their products,” she said. “It gives us their environmental and health [risks].” 

Lapointe added that McGill reuses as many materials as possible.

While various federal, provincial, and municipal governments require in-depth reviews of McGill’s GHG emissions, the university has also cultivated ties with other schools in reporting to various environmental NGOs. Conraud added that he hopes to present a review— one more thorough and accessible than all others—for the McGill community.

Kathleen Ng, McGill’s Environmental Officer, argued that the provincial government, which provides McGill with the majority of its funding, increasingly makes the job of the Office of Sustainability more difficult as McGill’s environmental performance consistently exceeds provincial expectations.

“Because our operating budgets for electricity are given by the Ministry of Education, and we do not use all the money allocated, they cut our budgets,” Ng said.

In addition, while the university continually decreases its ecological footprint at a minimal cost, McGill has had to search for cheaper energy. A number of attendees raised concerns after viewing Conraud’s presentation over the sources of energy used by the university.

“Approximately 50 per cent of all the energy we consume [comes from] fossil fuels, and the answer [to why that is the case] is that it is cheaper … Some students were promoting carbon neutrality, but that would be expensive,” Conraud said. “McGill as an institution and a community needs to define what our goals are.”

Ng underlined the need for student intervention. McGill staff seek change in the McGill community, but students, she said, who carry the most weight, rarely participate in discussions.

“We used to have a committee on the environment with students, staff, and faculty to brainstorm ways to keep the lines of communication open,” Ng said. “What we are interested in seeing is getting students engaged … towards finding alternatives to what we already have.”

As the university’s clients, she continued, students’ suggestions and concerns often carry more weight on campus than those from staff and faculty.

“Sustainability is everyone’s job,” Ng said.