Sustainability Vision Stakeholder Consultation Process

The British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) recently launched a new Sustainability Vision, that outlines nine strategies to leverage the institute’s strengths and create a clear path for sustainability progress.

Overview

BCIT hired Prism to help facilitate an in-person and online community engagement process to gather input on the draft Sustainability Vision and Strategies from BCIT’s diverse group of stakeholders. Working closely with the Institute Sustainability team in fall 2019, Prism supported the design and delivery of a series of consultation initiatives, including multiple open house events and online surveys. Through the process, almost 800 people shared ideas, input and inspiration that helped refine the vision and strategies.

Consultation Process

With Prism’s support, BCIT hosted six open houses – one at each of the institute’s five campuses, as well as one at the Centre for Applied Research and Innovation. The events featured a set of large-format posters, created by Prism that:

• shared the draft vision and strategies,
• were used to create a space to gather input from participants, and
• provided information on the context for the work and why BCIT is committed to continuing progress on embedding sustainability into organizational practices.

Prism also developed and conducted several online surveys to gather input from diverse campus and external stakeholders. The surveys allowed campus stakeholders to provide input even if they couldn’t attend one of the open houses.

Analyzing Results

The final Engagement and Consultation Report collated over 550 comments from students, staff and faculty. It grouped the comments into key themes and ideas that helped to inform updates to the Vision and nine sustainability strategies.

Launched in April 2020, BCIT’s new Sustainability Vision will guide the institute’s sustainability plans and actions through the coming years. To echo the document’s title, it will enable ”people to lead socially just lives within ecological limits.”

The global importance of climate change has shifted the focus from energy and cost reductions to carbon reduction. In a paper published by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), we shared specific case studies of deep carbon retrofits and summarized some key lessons learned.

For over 30 years, commercial energy audits have been the cornerstone of energy reduction programs for existing buildings.  In the last several years, the shifted focus to reducing carbon has resulted in a new approach to exploring and implementing deep carbon retrofits. As the lead author of the paper, Robert Greenwald, our President, had the pleasure of presenting some of the highlights at the virtual ACEEE conference in August 2020.

The paper’s highlights included:

• A comparison of energy audits and deep carbon retrofit studies in the commercial sector
• A sample scope of work for a deep carbon retrofit study
• Objectives and benefits of a deep carbon retrofit to shift the mindset of practitioners and building owners
• The practical challenges of implementing deep carbon retrofits
• Considerations for fuel switching and electrification
• Lessons from deep carbon retrofits

Successful case studies resulting in carbon reductions of 50-90% are also shared, including:

1. Kitsilano Community Centre and Arena Heat Recovery
2. Pacific Environmental Sciences Centre Mechanical Upgrades and Stakeholder Engagement
3. Langara College Building A Deep Retrofit

We want to thank Craig Edwards, Energy & Utilities Manager of City of Vancouver, Iram Green, Energy Team Lead of Prism Engineering, and Sam Thomas, Nelson Branch Manager of Prism Engineering for their contributions to this paper.