Our Approach
The global climate emergency affects everyone. SFU’s approach to sustainability and climate action reflects this reality, rejecting the idea that this work is the responsibility of any one group or person at our university. Whether staff, faculty, student, alumni or community member, there is a role for everyone to play in building a more sustainable and climate-just future.
Embedding sustainability and climate action
Sustainability and climate action is woven throughout all vice-presidential portfolios at SFU, including planning and administration, operations, research, academics, campus and community engagement, and international partnerships.
This approach was intentionally designed to align with SFU’s Sustainability Policy GP38. GP38 distributes the responsibility for sustainability work (including climate action) across each vice-president portfolio. It also defines sustainability at SFU as encompassing the interconnections between the planet (the environment), people (society) and prosperity (economy).
Embedding Sustainability and Climate Action (ESCA) Framework
In 2022, SFU’s executive team approved the ESCA framework, operationalizing the cross-institution leadership referenced in GP38 in a more formal way. As part of ESCA, several core groups are integrated into the planning and implementation processes at SFU, connecting closely with the central SFU Sustainability and Climate Office throughout the year and not just at intermittent touchpoints.
Climate and environmental justice
The root of our environmental crisis can be found in the extraction and domination mindset that is central to colonization, unregulated corporate growth and wealth creation. Seeing ecosystems and whole groups of people solely as “resources” for exploitation has led to deep inequalities, injustice and the degeneration of life systems globally.
These injustices are visible in the unequal impacts of climate change on land and people in poorer countries and in the geographical juxtaposition of environmental pollution and racialized communities. The environmental movement for many decades was led by white, middle-class westerners who advanced an environmental colonialism that prioritized white voices and perspectives, natural space preservation over Indigenous land rights, and degenerative “clean” technology solutions (e.g., hydro dams displacing millions of people, electric-car battery mines on Indigenous land).
How SFU fits in
At SFU, we recognize that universities are colonial institutions and that the majority of those in leadership positions guiding the work continue to be white westerners. While this reality will not change overnight, where we can do better immediately—and are commited to doing so—is ensuring diverse perspectives are integrated into decision-making and implementation planning, and using resources that already exist, such as the Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action and the Aboriginal Reconciliation Council (ARC) Walk This Path With Us Report, within our work.
We can also value and prioritize Indigenous and other non-dominant knowledge systems to respond to the climate crisis in ways that do not further harm. For example: The proliferation of destructive forest fires in British Columbia has ignited an interest in Indigenous knowledge about controlled burns and how to manage forests in ways that are beneficial for both the forest and for people. Community forests (another Indigenous land use approach) integrate people with the land and create opportunities for coexistence with nature in a sustainable way.
COMMUNITY-DEVELOPED 20-YEAR SUSTAINABILITY VISION
In 2016, 2,400+ SFU students, faculty, staff and senior leadership came together to envision SFU’s sustainable future. The resulting vision lays the foundation for all institutional sustainability work. Share our vision (.pdf)