Nominations open for 2020 Sustainability Awards

Do you know someone doing outstanding sustainability work at UCalgary? Take a few minutes to nominate them now for the 2020 UCalgary Sustainability Awards. Eight award categories celebrate students, faculty and staff who have advanced UCalgary’s commitment to sustainability excellence and contributed to the goals of our Institutional Sustainability Strategy. The 2020 award categories are:

1. Undergraduate Student Sustainability Award

2. Graduate Student Sustainability Award

3. Student Club Sustainability Award

4. Staff Sustainability Award (Individual)

5. Staff Sustainability Award (Group)

6. Faculty Sustainability Research Award       

7. Sustainability Teaching Award
    
8. Experiential Learning Project in Sustainability Award

Nominations are open until midnight, Jan. 20, 2020, and self-nominations are encouraged. The first six people to submit a nomination before Dec. 9 will receive a pair of Early Bird Prize vouchers to take a friend for lunch at The Landing. Early Bird Prize winners will be notified by the week of Dec. 16, 2019.

2019 award recipients included:

• Undergraduate Student Sustainability Award: Tina Guo founded the Students Against Domestic Abuse Association and organized events to discuss the impacts of domestic abuse.
• Graduate Student Sustainability Award: Asha Hollis, Cumming School of Medicine, developed Global Access to Medicines Guidelines to make medicines more affordable for low-income countries.
• Sustainability Teaching Award (Tie): Joe Kadi was nominated for a block week Ecofeminism course. Houston Peschl was nominated for his course on Entrepreneurial Thinking, which teaches systems thinking and social innovation
• Faculty Research in Sustainability Award: Dr. Sasha Tsenkova, PhD, developed solutions to urban sustainability challenges and led projects with partners like the Calgary Affordable Housing Collective and United Nations.
• Student Club Sustainability Award: Emerging Leaders in Solar Energy (ELSE) (accepted by Karthi Karunakaran, Varun Bhatt) is a student club that promotes solar power and energy literacy. They installed an off-grid solar photovoltaic system in the Campus Community Garden.
• Experiential Learning Project in Sustainability Award: Exploring Communities: Community Collabs (accepted by Dr. Victoria Fast, PhD) connects students with the Federation of Calgary Communities and Community Associations to create opportunities for tactical urbanism projects.
• Staff Sustainability Award - Individual Leadership: Sanjay Khulbe introduced Fill it Forward. Refill a water bottle to track usage and environmental footprints and donate clean water to communities in need. Learn more.
• Staff Sustainability Award - Group Leadership: Ana Pazmino, Natasha Yee and a group of UCalgary Facilities employees implemented UCalgary's Standardized Waste Bin Project by adding four stream-waste bins across campus.

For more details, the Sustainability Awards Terms of Reference and the nomination form, visit the UCalgary Sustainability website. 

Student Club Sustainability Award nominations are collected by the UCalgary Students’ Union as part of the SU Clubs Awards. Nominations for this award will be gathered through the ClubHub Portal. To nominate an SU student club for a Sustainability Award, please check the ClubHub Portal for the nomination form beginning in January.

The University of Calgary’s Institutional Sustainability Strategy provides a road map for continuous improvement in our pursuit of excellence and leadership in sustainability. We aim to become a Canadian post-secondary education leader in sustainability in our academic and engagement programs, administrative and operational practices and through supporting community and industry in their aims for leadership in sustainability. Learn more about UCalgary’s leadership in sustainability.