The Sustainability Consulting Course is offered by the School of Accounting and Finance (SAF) and the School of Environment, Enterprise and Development (SEED) at the University of Waterloo.
The course is held in the winter, spring/summer and fall terms. We are always looking for new partners that have sustainability projects our students can work on. Our student group is interdisciplinary with students potentially coming from Environment & Business, Accounting and Finance, Engineering, Planning, Geography and other disciplines. As a result, they bring well-rounded and varying perspectives to client projects.
Why partner with us?
Working with our student teams gives your organization the opportunity to:
Access fresh perspectives
Our talented and motivated students bring new ideas, resources and the capacity to support projects alongside you and your team.
Advance real sustainability work
Your project becomes part of a course dedicated to applied sustainability projects, giving students meaningful experience while helping your team move forward on strategic goals.
Strengthen community connections
As a partner, you'll contribute to experiential education, build relationships with faculty and emerging professionals, and demonstrate your support for higher learning and community partnerships.
Explore diverse approaches
Students come from a range of academic programs and sustainability backgrounds, offering interdisciplinary thinking that can uncover new pathways or solutions.
Partner expectations
As a partner, you will commit to working with and mentoring a student team for one academic term (12 weeks), supporting your team as they develop the projects and collaborate with you to address a specific challenge.
Time commitments vary by project, but setting aside approximately one hour per week is a helpful starting point. As the project progresses, your team and the students can adjust the meeting cadence as needed.
Engagement and site visits
To help students put their project request into context, we recommend hosting a site visit at your organization within the first 1–3 weeks, where possible. Should you need any assistance with organizing this visit or any specific requests (e.g. Steel-toed boots), please reach out and we will do our best to help.
Project Timelines
The winter term begins on January 5 and ends on April 6.
- Week 1: Students begin project work. Please plan to meet your team toward the end of the first week to launch the project.
- Week 2: Should you need assistance to narrow the scope of the project, your project team will complete that in week 2 through discussions with their instructor, mentors and peers.
- Week 3: Teams will present their proposed project plan back to you (and potentially your team) as their client organization.
- Week 6: Mid-term progress presentation.
- Week 11-12: Final presentation and deliverable just before the end of term.
Project scope and matching process
This interdisciplinary course brings together students from across campus and programs. All students will have strong foundations in sustainability, but may be learning about sustainability from different angles—ranging from adaptation and mitigation to sustainable buildings and systems. In the first weeks of the term, we level-set sustainability concepts to fill any gaps.
To ensure a successful match with a team, partners are encouraged to propose two to three potential project topics with varying levels of technical depth. Students are assigned based on their skills, relevant experience and learning goals. Proposing multiple options increases the likelihood of a match in a given term. If a match isn’t possible, we can add your project to our pipeline for a future term and reconnect to confirm any updates. Our aim through the course is to provide growth opportunities for students in the sustainability space while ultimately keeping our clients happy with the final deliverables.
Confidentiality & Fit
Above all, please remember this is a learning opportunity for our students.
Students regularly discuss their projects in class to seek feedback, share progress and reflect on challenges. If your project requires confidentiality, NDAs can be arranged for the student team. However, projects with high levels of sensitivity may not be a good fit due to the peer learning model. If you're unsure if a potential project is a good fit, or you have any questions regarding confidentiality, please reach out for a discussion.
Register your interest
We invite you to share your projects by completing the form below.
If you have any questions, please contact Claire Purvis, Associate Director of the Hub for Sustainability and Instructor for the Sustainability Consulting class.
We look forward to working with you!