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Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

Engagement

Meet our First Re-Use for Good Ambassador: Emma Chong

Emma Chong is joining the Re-use For Good program at SFU as our first Re-use For Good Ambassador helping to support sustainability and circular economy initiatives across our campuses.

Meet Emma


 

Research, Teaching and Learning

SFU Alumnus En Route to Stellar Zero Waste Career

Teghan Acres graduated in the height of the pandemic in June of 2021 with a Bachelor of Environment in Resource and Environmental Management. Teghan developed a deep interest in zero waste and circular economy through her involvement with Ban the Bottle – a group advocating to end the sale of single-use plastic water bottles on campus. While the group was successful in achieving and expanding its goal, this was just the beginning for Teghan.

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Fair Trade Ambassador Daphne Chan Wins 2022 NACAS Student Author Contest

The Fair Trade ambassador program at SFU not only helps to promote awareness of the Fair Trade movement but also produces award-winning student writers through the annual National Association of College Auxiliary Services (NACAS) student author contest. Daphne Chan, 2022’s winner, who was a fourth-year resource and environmental management undergraduate student, follows in the footsteps of the last two Fair Trade lead ambassadors before her.

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Facts and Figures

  • 178 research publications relating to SDG 13, 2017-2022 (source: SciVal)
  • 125 active research projects related to SDG 13 funded from 2017-2022
  • 10 courses relating to SDG 12, representing 1,166 students, offered between the 2018/19 and 2020/21 academic year

 

Operations

Embedding Sustainability In New 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!

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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. 

Learn more at SFU News

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. 

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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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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.

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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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