Sustainability Integration Defined
Sustainability Integration can be defined as such:
- The process of embedding / integrating sustainability into everything an organization does: from governance and strategy to day-to-day operations, processes, metrics and reporting.
- Both natural and social systems.
- A continuum exists regarding the extent of sustainability integration that organizations must consider in making decisions and developing sustainability strategies and integration workplans.
- Every decision within an organization is embedded in sustainability.
Our Vision
- To be a nexus of interaction, collaboration, and advancement that defines UW as a world leader in Sustainability Integration.
- A collaboration of SAF and SEED to foster innovation, interaction, multidirectional communication and advancement of sustainability integration:
- Across the two schools.
- In organizations (through the Business Advisory Council).
- With students.
- The Hub is an ecosystem connecting the Sustainability Business Council, Student Consultancy and Professional Development, with the Executive in Residence at the centre of the ecosystem.
- It is a nexus of multi directional, interdisciplinary interaction, collaboration, and advancement for sustainability integration, experiential learning, and iterative development and application of leading practices.
- Iteratively applying and developing leading practices in sustainability for organizations and education.
- It connects with the Bachelor of Sustainability and Financial Management (BSFM) program, Environment and Business, and the Research Centre.
Objectives
- To establish a nexus of interaction, collaboration and advancement to define UW as a world leader in Sustainability Integration.
- To overcome barriers to sustainability integration.
- Convene practitioners and knowledge experts through the Business Council to interact and develop innovative and world leading practices in sustainability integration.
- Provide members with the opportunity for iterative collaboration and innovation, sharing collective experience to advance sustainability integration in their organizations, in experiential education, and through the student consultancy.
- To be an ecosystem for innovation and training of next generation talent to support sustainability integration.
- To be proactive in developing and preparing tomorrow’s sustainability leaders to play an integral role in our future.
- To create a living lab to provide access to sustainability integration support to small and medium sized organizations, not for profits and municipalities.
- To attract visibility for the University of Waterloo from various communities: business, accounting, finance, environment, and academia.
- To provide knowledge translation to industry and civil society through an annual conference and strategic communications.
STUDENT CONSULTANCY / SFM 328/329
This course provides students hands-on training in strategic integration of sustainability objectives and measurement within the firm with guidance from industry experts and supervision by faculty.
- Experiential learning to establish skills in business, consulting, and sustainability to develop tomorrow’s sustainability leaders.
- Create comfort with ambiguity and change (in regulations, in organizations, in society).
Multi Disciplinary Participants
- Consulting teams matched with outside organizations to address real-world issues.
- SFM students.
- AFM students enrolled in the sustainability specialization.
- SEED Environment and Business students.
SUSTAINABILITY BUSINESS COUNCIL
- Our goal is to convene practitioners and knowledge experts through the Business Council to interact and develop innovative and world leading practices in sustainability integration.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
- To address the skills gaps in the existing work force, there is a need for professional development.
- By virtue of the collaboration and sharing of experiences, gaps and challenges by the Hub’s membership, opportunities and needs for post certification education / professional development in the area of sustainability integration will be identified.
- These opportunities can be addressed collaboratively by the university and Hub members.
SUSTAINABLE FUTURES INITIATIVE
The University of Waterloo’s Sustainable Futures Initiative brings together the Water Institute, Waterloo Climate Institute, and the Waterloo Institute of for Sustainable Energy to catalyze holistic approaches to the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals with a focus on the interconnection between energy, climate and water. This initiative aims to make the University of Waterloo a global leader in sustainability, research, education, and innovation for the benefit of the environment, economy and society.
The Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation (Intact Centre) is an applied research centre with a national focus within the Faculty of Environment at the University of Waterloo. The Intact Centre works with homeowners, communities, governments and businesses to identify, and reduce, the impacts of extreme weather and climate change.
To this end, the centre is an incubator of new adaptation ideas, conducting research, knowledge mobilization and promoting initiatives aimed at de-risking the negative impacts of a changing climate and extreme weather, such as extreme heat, wildfire and flooding.