X University has received a Silver rating on the Sustainability Tracking Assessment and Rating System (STARS), according to the school’s new Sustainability Progress Report, which was released in September 2021.
The official Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) report revealed a score of 54.26. The university submitted their first AASHE STARS report to measure their current campus sustainability performance.
X University President Mohamed Lachemi stated in an executive letter to the STARS Steering Committee that the school is committed to becoming a national leader in the field of sustainability.
“The completion of STARS has been an invaluable experience, one that has allowed us to measure, validate, and communicate our institutional sustainability efforts in a robust way,” Lachemi said.
The progress report referred to the introduction of X University’s new Strategic Vision, in which championing sustainability was included as one of the five values. This vision is meant to guide the university for the next ten years.
Another key highlight of the Sustainability Progress Report was the opening of two Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) targeting buildings. The school is looking to achieve LEED Gold for the Daphne Cockwell Health Sciences Complex (DCC), and LEED Silver for the Centre for Urban Innovation (CUI). Interesting features of these buildings include water-efficient landscaping, with a stormwater capture to collect and store rainwater in a cistern. The DCC also opened a new green roof this year to help reduce stormwater runoff, the second of the university’s kind.
“We seek to incorporate natural spaces and features into our unique urban campus grounds and develop green spaces that support sustainable food production and practical learning opportunities for students,” X University said on their Sustainability page.
The Sustainability Progress Report also highlighted how X University transitioned the campus from a three-stream system (waste to landfill, bottles and cans, and paper) to include organics as their fourth stream. The university installed over 400 new bins with the goal to improve their campus waste diversion rate.
“We look forward to improving our sustainability performance, and one-day achieving STARS Platinum,” Lachemi concluded in the executive letter.
Here are some Green Universities across Ontario, by Viktoriia Kolomiiets
