Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

Engagement


SFU FairTrade is leading the charge for ethical campus consumption

FairTrade is an organization that ensures products are produced ethically and sustainably by supporting farmers and producers in the developing countries through a set of FairTrade standards which guarantee fair wages and equitable revenue for products, despite global market fluctuations. SFU is Canada’s first and only Gold certified FairTrade campus. This certification signifies an active FairTrade Ambassador program for students, participation in international FairTrade conferences, and the availability of numerous FairTrade products on campus. 

SFU’s FairTrade program “has made [them] a leader for fair trade on campus and in the entire FairTrade movement in Canada,” says SFU FairTrade ambassador program coordinator, Kylee Pocrnich. The program’s purpose is to educate and raise awareness about fair trade, and participating students can choose how to achieve this through participating in one or multiple teams including events, research/survey, education, and social media. 

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Research, Teaching and Learning

BC Centre for Agritech Innovation Success

The B.C. Centre for Agritech Innovation is the province’s access point for farmers, producers, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and other sector partners seeking to grow B.C.’s diverse and dynamic agriculture and agrifood sector for greater productivity, profitability and sustainability. BCCAI supports farmers, producers, and small and medium enterprises (SMEs)in meeting their innovation needs. The centre works with partners to develop and advance technology solutions and training opportunities to solve industry challenges, build resilient supply chains and generate global solutions for food insecurity and climate change. The Centre has supported many partners in success around sustainable and productive agriculture solutions.

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Facts and Figures

• 159 research publications relating to SDG 13, 2020-2024 (source: SciVal)
• 68 active research projects related to SDG 13 funded from 2020-2024
• 10 courses relating to SDG 12, representing 1,166 students, offered between the 2018/19 and 2020/21 academic year

Operations

Embedding Sustainability in SFU Letters

At Simon Fraser University, we are championing a new Vancouver-born way of not just recycling materials—but upcycling. That means we are making reused materials into something of higher value. SFU has partnered with ChopValue to locally handcraft our new SFU letters out of 114,240 used chopsticks. Some of the chopsticks collected on campus were used to craft our letters!

Re-use for Good

In early 2021, SFU phased out single-use plastic beverage bottles in vending and dining areas. This was advocated for and supported by the work of the student club, Ban the Bottle SFU. Re-use for Good and Ban the Bottle SFU collaborated with Facilities Services to expand water bottle refill stations access. SFU is proud to now have 168 stations across all three campuses which makes SFU one of the top universities in British Columbia for water refill station access. 

Mugshare launches at Renaissance Café

Mugshare is a social impact program that provides a safe, reusable alternative to single-use cups through a convenient deposit-return system. This local business was created by a group of students in 2016 in an effort to shift the norm on single-use waste, without putting the burden of responsibility on individuals. Their initial six-month pilot diverted more than 10,000 single-use cups from the landfill.

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Furniture recycling @ SFU

Facilities Services picks up, sorts, organizes, repairs and stores reusable furnishings. Typical items include filing cabinets, office chairs, desks and bookshelves. Furnishings that cannot be reused are taken apart and sorted into bins for recycling. The used furnishings are available to university departments for reuse on campus at no cost, except for moving charges.

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Science Technical Centre

SFU’s Science Technical Centre is a champion of sustainability and the circular economy—giving equipment a second life by re-using, refurbishing and repurposing technology.

With experts across three units, the machine shop, electronic shop and glass shop, the center is a resource available to researchers, teachers, laboratories and staff for technological support in repairing, designing and building electromechanical devices.

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