Something has shifted in how organizations think about sustainability. It's less a department now and more of a lens, one that shows up in procurement, finance, legal and risk, whether those teams asked for it or not.
Claire Purvis knows this shift from the inside. A University of Waterloo alum with a master's degree in environmental studies, she spent more than 15 years in sustainability consulting before returning as the Associate Director of the Hub for Sustainability Integration. She has led greenhouse gas inventory projects, built decarbonization plans and advised executive teams on climate risk across sectors including healthcare, manufacturing, finance and real estate. Now she brings that experience into the classroom as the assistant professor of a student consultancy course, one that reflects Waterloo's deep commitment to experiential learning.
"We will always be reminding students to save the trees and bees," she says. "But nowadays, it has to go so much further than that. We're teaching them to see and show value in being sustainable and to work across an entire organization to make sustainability actually stick."