- The Goals
- SDG 1: No Poverty
- SDG 2: Zero Hunger
- SDG 3: Good health and well-being
- SDG 4: Quality education
- SDG 5: Gender equality
- SDG 6: Clean water and sanitation
- SDG 7: Affordable and clean energy
- SDG 8: Decent work and economic growth
- SDG 9: Industry, innovation and infrastructure
- SDG 10: Reduced inequalities
- SDG 11: Sustainable cities and communities
- SDG 12: Responsible consumption and production
- SDG 13: Climate action
- SDG 14: Life below water
- SDG 15: Life on land
- SDG 16: Peace, justice and strong institutions
- SDG 17: Partnerships for the goals
- About
- Contact
Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
Engagement
Student-led BYO app promotes sustainability
Created by SFU business student Priscilla Lam and University of British Columbia land and food systems student Angelica Tso, BYO is a mobile app-based program that allows individuals to track how many cups they have saved by choosing to use a reusable mug and put those savings towards planting trees.
For every reusable mug purchase through the app, five cents will go towards the BYO Tree Fund, which is donated to Eden Reforestation Projects.
Research, Teaching and Learning
Raising awareness and opportunities to reduce food waste
SFU resource and environmental management professor and co-founder of SFU’s Food Systems Lab Tammara Soma is researching why rates of household food waste are so high, and what types of interventions could help reduce them. Soma's research was selected in May 2021 as an SFU Scholarly Impact.
Facts and Figures
- 151 research publications relating to SDG 13, 2017-2021 (source: SciVal)
- 86 active research projects related to SDG 13 funded from 2017 - 2021
- 10 courses relating to SDG 12, representing 1,166 students, offered between the 2018/19 and 2020/21 academic year
Operations
Ban the Bottle
Ban the Bottle (BTB) SFU is a student-led initiative that aims to ban the sale of bottled water at SFU and help the university maintain its position as a sustainability leader. The organization successfully sought the support of the Pacific Water Research Centre and has been working with the group since 2018. BTB has partnered with the SFU Sustainability Office, SFU Ancillary Services and the Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS) to support the phasing-out of water bottles.
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.
Binners projects
SFU’s Re-use for Good initiative partnered with Binners’ Project—a network of binners, also known as waste-pickers—to conduct a waste audit that will reveal how the university community is discarding single-use plastics and products.
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.
Mask Recycling Program
A new mask recycling program at SFU aims to prevent thousands of disposable COVID-19 facemasks from ending up in a landfill.
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.