While McGill implemented its first environmental policy in 2001, it was only in 2010 that the university’s first sustainability policy was adapted. Sustainability, defined by the United Nations Brundtland Commission as the practice of developing and meeting present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to do the same, has been central to McGill’s environmental action and policy ever since. In January, Alan Desnoyers, Chair of McGill’s board committee on Sustainability and Social Responsibility, announced a new Climate and Sustainability Strategy for the years 2025 to 2030. The new strategy, the board claims, “sets out defined objectives and a strategic path to address today’s urgent environmental challenges.”
Upon the publishing of the strategy, François Miller, Executive Director of McGill Sustainability, told the McGill Reporter that “collectively, we are transforming McGill into a world leader in sustainability.” To do so, the new plan focuses on three core domains: climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. The university has adopted a bi-chronological approach, with long-term ambitious objectives and more pressing issues to be solved by 2030.
The report first outlines the long-term plan of achieving carbon neutrality by 2040, in balancing the university’s carbon emissions and absorption. In light of this goal, McGill aims to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 45 per cent from those reported in 2015. The university is also looking to increase climate resilience in facing increasing heatwaves, cold temperatures and extreme precipitation, both in frequency and intensity, and plans to address all critical climate risks on campus before 2030.
To remedy biodiversity loss, McGill pledged to become a Nature Positive University in 2022, joining over 500 higher education institutions worldwide in the effort to foster biodiversity on their campuses. Thus, by 2030, McGill plans to foster biodiversity in 30 per cent of our campus’s green spaces. This means managing our green spaces in a more responsible way: adapting mowing frequency, restricting chemical treatment, targeting only invasive species, and adding planting.
McGill is also currently pursuing goals of becoming a zero-waste institution by 2035. The university launched their first reduction and diversion of landfill initiative in 2018. In 2022, McGill created over 700 new sorting stations all over campus and compost stations in key academic buildings to further diminish landfill in 2022. Adopting a new meal plan approach in 2023 was another change made in hopes of lessening waste. The updated Climate Strategy outlines McGill’s goals to divert 70 per cent of landfill waste by 2030 to remain in line with its 2035 zero-waste objective.
Overall, these sustainability goals are consistent with McGill’s previous commitments, as the Climate and Sustainability Strategy for 2020-2025 contained the same core objectives. Indeed, achieving carbon neutrality by 2040, which has been a goal since 2017, and stayed consistently without any reassessment or delay discourse from McGill’s part. In other words, McGill is staying on track with its objectives. Proof of McGill’s continued engagement lies in their achievement of a Platinum STARS (Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Ranking System) rating in March 2024: this achievement came six years before the deadline they had set, moving upwards from a silver rating only twelve years prior. The university’s efforts are confirmed when looking at the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education’s (AASHE) 2024 Sustainable Campus Index, where McGill ranked 8th out of 189 institutions.
However, an integral component of Climate and Sustainability initiatives at universities has to do with research and learning. McGill identifies not only research and learning as its “core mission,” but also the spreading of knowledge it should lead to. This is especially important knowing that Universities Canada warns that many higher education institutions do not communicate their actions or their research efficiently in sustainability. For example, in 2023, McGill established a sustainability module allowing students not only to further understand sustainability, but also showing them how to participate themselves and take action on campus. Learning about sustainability has been incorporated into university life through classes and modules, but also through workshops, clubs, and activities that give students the possibility to engage in a variety of ways.
The role of universities in sustainable development holds far more responsibility than simply making campuses ‘green.’ Evan Henry, Associate Director of the McGill Sustainability Systems Initiative (MSSI) states that, in setting its carbon neutrality goal ten years ahead of what Canada promised at the 2015 Paris Agreement, “not only are we playing our part, we are showing leadership, for not just Canada but for universities worldwide.” In other words, the new 2025-2030 Climate and Sustainability strategy not only reveals McGill’s ambition and commitment to sustainable development, but sets this same high standard for others. This seems to be a joint effort in Canadian universities: Sherbrooke University, the University of British Columbia, and Thompson River University all have a Platinum STARS rating alongside McGill.
Yet, despite the ambitious long-term goals and the emphasis placed on research and learning, Henry wishes McGill adapted to the “unexpected additional global emissions” and established more “aggressive” goals, as stated in an email to the Daily. Overall, if the new strategy ambitiously covers university action both on campus and beyond, it will become effective in the long-term and may be found lacking in more tangible shorter-term objectives.